How to Recognize Depressive Thoughts
Previously, you learned that thoughts, or your brain’s interpretation, about an activating event or situation can have an impact on your emotional experience. Simply put, some thoughts generate feelings of depression because they suggest depressing ideas (e.g., that things are hopeless, that we are unloved, overwhelmed, worthless, isolated). We call this “Depressive Thinking”.
Depressive thoughts trigger negative consequences, such as negative emotions, additional negative thoughts, and increased hopelessness. These consequences result in more depressive symptoms, such as giving up, which will only make matters worse.
By contrast, constructive thoughts tend to neutralize negative emotions and yield productive thoughts, making it easier to problem solve and manage emotions.
This Learning Activity will teach you how to recognize depressive thoughts. At the end of this activity, you will be asked to go out and monitor your own thoughts, looking for your own examples of depressive thinking.
Let’s start by reviewing the features of Depressive Thoughts
After reviewing the videos in the “Learn More About Depressive Thinking” learning activity, you may have noticed some common features of depressive thinking.
Depressive Thoughts can be:
DISTRESSING: Distressing thoughts may make you feel depressed, afraid, worried, alone, helpless, hopeless, angry, or panicked. Distressing thoughts often contain emotional words and ideas involving loss, worthlessness, danger, helplessness, hopelessness, isolation, abandonment, or failure. Having such thoughts literally can make you feel sick.
EXTREME OR UNREALISTIC: Extreme, unrealistic thoughts suggest some unlikely or magnified events or consequences of an activating event or situation. Such thoughts often contain extreme words or ideas. Look for words like never, always, impossible, can’t, won’t, or forever.
HOPELESS: Hopeless thoughts cast your problems as being without remedy and beyond repair. They suggest that things are bad, will never change, and that there is nothing you can do about it.
Practice Recognizing Depressive Thoughts
Most of the time, you probably don’t examine your thoughts closely. In order to identify depressive thoughts, you will need to get practice in taking a careful look at them. To help you practice, we will ask you to evaluate several depressive thoughts and think about what features of each thought make it a depressive thought.