Change Your Thinking with CBT

While in most cases, people respond positively to a peace offering, even if this doesn’t happen, what has been lost? We can enjoy the moral high ground knowing that we behaved with civility, regardless of their response. After all, we don’t need to let other people determine how we should behave.

When faced with a situation we perceive to be unfair, it is often helpful to communicate

when you tell someone they have done something that is a problem to you, they may choose to change their behaviour. Sometimes people are simply not aware of how their actions affect us, and telling them how we feel may prompt them to do things differently.

If you feel angry because a work colleague does not carry out some of his responsibilities, and this impacts on your job, then talking to him about this in a non-threatening way may motivate him to lift his game.

Telling someone that we feel angry or upset over something they have done can enable us to release our anger.

Anger is created by the perception that something is bad or unfair, and is accompanied by feelings of threat or vulnerability.

Acute, explosive anger is potentially harmful because it generates behaviours that hurt us (as well as other people) in the longer term.

Cognitive strategies that can help to release anger including a cost/ benefit analysis, goal-focused thinking, thought monitoring and disputing, mindfulness, empathy and challenging beliefs about the benefits of staying angry.

Behavioural strategies include arousal reduction techniques (such as physical exercise and deep relaxation), problem solving and utilising effective communication strategies.

Predisposing childhood experiences include parents who were critical, punitive or unpredictable, or who communicated an overly dangerous view of the world.

Worrying beforehand will not protect me emotionally if bad things should happen—it just produces anxiety for no benefit. Why suffer ‘just in case’? If things should go wrong I will cope with them when I need to. Worrying in advance provides no additional protection.

Rick’s behaviour is typical of people who have an excessive need for approval. The anxiety generated by the possibility of conflict gives rise to unassertive behaviour. We ignore our own long-term interests for the sake of keeping the peace.

As with all beliefs, the excessive need for approval and fear of rejection is reflected in the way we behave. For instance, we might typically try to please or impress people by agreeing with them; not clearly stating what we think or want; being excessively generous or trying too hard to be likeable.

For those who worry too much about what others might think of them, behavioural disputing is a great way to confront this concern.

Shame-attacking involves deliberately doing things that might elicit negative appraisal.

In a now famous personal anecdote, Ellis described his experience of confronting his own fear of rejection by asking out over 100 women who he approached on a park bench. According to Ellis: ‘I realised that throughout this exercise no one vomited, no one called a cop and I didn’t die.

‘I could never have believed that dancing a conga line in the main street of Sydney could be so liberating. Most people didn’t even look at us, and those that did didn’t seem to care. It really brought home to me the fact that so much of my worry about what others think of me is just inside my own head.’

Exercises such as these enable us to learn that even if we do look silly or draw attention to ourselves, people rarely notice or care and, even if some do think we are strange, there are rarely any significant consequences.

Say what you think rather than what you believe others want to hear, and observe whether negative consequences ensue. If you frequently agree with others in order to win their approval, then practise expressing your disagreement when you genuinely disagree.

Parents who have very high expectations of their children; who are frequently critical of their children; whose affection is contingent on their children’s achievements; and who display perfectionist behaviours themselves are more likely to give rise to children with perfectionist traits.