What is cognitive restructuring?

What would happen if your partner abandoned you? You would probably say that it is something horrible. Now, is it really something horrible? How many horrible things exist in this world? How many more horrible things are that our partner leaves us or that our child fails an exam? You may wonder what these questions are about, and today we will talk to you about cognitive restructuring.

Cognitive restructuring is a technique that focuses on our thoughts. Through it, people are taught to change those maladaptive thoughts for others that help them not suffer so much. Thus, cognitive restructuring is one of the most suggestive cognitive-behavioral techniques within the repertoire of a psychologist. If we change certain thoughts, we will change the emotions associated with them, which will make us feel better.

A thought is a hypothesis

Cognitive restructuring consists of the client, with the help of the psychologist, identifying and questioning their maladaptive thoughts.. Thus, these will be replaced by more appropriate ones and the emotional disturbance caused by the former will be reduced or eliminated.

In cognitive restructuring, thoughts are considered hypotheses. Therapist and patient work together to collect data to determine whether these hypotheses are correct or useful. Instead of telling patients what valid alternative thoughts are, the therapist asks a series of questions. Next, she will design behavioral experiments for patients to evaluate and test their negative thoughts.

Finally, Patients will reach a conclusion about the validity or usefulness of these thoughts. As we see, the psychologist or therapist does not impose anything. It is the patient himself who draws conclusions from the experiments he carries out.

Theoretical bases of cognitive restructuring

Cognitive restructuring is based on certain theoretical assumptions. These theoretical budgets are the following:

The way people cognitively structure their experiences has a fundamental influence on how they feel and act, as well as the physical reactions they have.. In other words, our reaction to a given event depends mainly on how we perceive, attend to, value and interpret it.

Let’s imagine that we meet a person we have met recently. We like him, but half an hour has passed and he hasn’t shown up. If our interpretation is that he is not interested in us, we will feel sad and will not establish contact again.

But if we think that the delay is due to an unforeseen event or a confusion of time, our emotional and behavioral reaction will be very different. Besides, affect, behavior, and physical reactions influence each other and help maintain thoughts.

People’s thoughts can be identified through methods such as interviews, questionnaires and self-records. Many of these thoughts are conscious and others are preconscious, but the person is able to access them.It is possible to change people’s thoughts. This can be used to achieve therapeutic changes.

Cognitive restructuring techniques

The following techniques have been effective in identifying, challenging and replacing irrational ways of thinking with more accurate, useful and positive ways of thinking.

1. The downward arrow

This technique starts from an idea and goes down to its root. For it, the therapist identifies an automatic thought, which he suspects may come from a dysfunctional core belief. Afterwards, he asks the consultant the meaning of that idea and continues with this investigation until one or more beliefs are revealed. For example:

Consultant: I am an introverted person

Therapist: what does that mean?

C: that it is very difficult for me to socialize with people.

T: and what does that mean?

C: When I meet people I am afraid of being rejected.

T: and what does that mean?

C: that no one can love me.

To avoid asking the same question all the time (“And what does that mean?”), the therapist can use the following variations:

And what if that’s true? Why is it so bad…? What’s the worst thing about…? What does that mean about you?

2. The Socratic questioning

It is a cognitive restructuring technique used to challenge thinking errors. The first step is to identify the thoughts that will be challenged. Then the evidence for and against this thought is considered. What evidence is there that this thought is accurate? What evidence exists that casts doubt on this?

Once the evidence is identified, a judgment is made about this thought. You compare the evidence for the thought and the evidence against the thought, and decide whether it is more likely to be accurate or false. Some Socratic questions to guide this type of dialogue are:

Is this thought realistic? Is it based on facts or feelings? What is the evidence for this idea? Could I be misinterpreting the evidence? Are you seeing the situation in black and white, when in reality it is more complicated? Do you have Is that thought out of habit or do the facts support it?

3. Guided imagery

This technique is also an effective method of cognitive restructuring, although it is generally used to relax, control anxiety or neutralize anger. To do this, the client must focus on a feeling they are experiencing in the session and allow an image of the feeling to emerge. Once you have an image in mind, the therapist will begin to evaluate the meanings that the image has. There are several evaluation techniques that can be used:

Motivated soliloquy: The therapist instructs the client to identify the image as an object (e.g., a client who visualized a lake drying up was instructed to “be the lake”) and speak from his position (e.g., the client would talk about how it felt to be the lake and what it meant that it was drying up).Interview: In this technique, the client will once again assume the role of an object, and the therapist will ask specific questions to the client in this role.Motivated dialogue: This technique involves the client assuming a role and addressing one of the other objects or people in the images (e.g., the client could identify themselves as the lake and address the trees around the lake).Guided descriptions: This technique refers to the therapist’s use of questions about what the client is seeing and feeling.Requested transformation: The therapist may suggest that the client change the image. This can be especially useful when the current image has reached the end of its usefulness as a discussion piece.

4. What would happen if…?

This technique is useful to modify the catastrophizing typical of some anxiety disorders. Seeks to confront the person with the unreality of their belief, to help you reduce anxiety. When asking “what is the worst that can happen?”, “and what would happen if this happens?” maybe the person becomes aware that even that scenario would be acceptable and that your fear and nervousness are being irrational.

5. Thought Record

Keeping thought logs is a great way to help people become aware of cognitive distortions, which is the first step in restructuring them (Myles & Shafran, 2015). The central objective of this technique is to note what recurring thoughts come to mind and the situations in which they arise. Thus, a record indicates the situation, thoughts, emotions, behaviors and alternative thinking.

The ABC model of cognitive restructuring

The cognitive model on which cognitive restructuring is based has been called the ABC model. by some authors (e.g., Ellis, 1979a). The three letters refer to the following:

The letter A refers to a real-life activating situation, event or experience.. For example, being criticized by a very dear person or failing an exam.

The letter B designates the patient’s appropriate or inappropriate cognitions (thoughts) about the situation (A).. Cognitions also refer to cognitive processes. These include perception, attention, memory, reasoning and interpretation.

The assumptions and beliefs that a person has make it easier for certain errors to occur in the processing of information. Among these errors or biases we find overgeneralization, filtering, dichotomous thinking, catastrophizing, etc.

Finally, The letter C refers to the emotional, behavioral and physical consequences of B (cognitions). For example, feeling afraid, trembling and running away when interpreting the appearance of a dog approaching barking in a threatening way.

Emotions, behavior, and physical reactions influence each other and contribute to maintaining cognitions.. In the ABC model, cognitions always precede emotion. However, the emotion can exist for a few moments without prior cognitions.

A basic assumption in the use of cognitive restructuring is that Cognitions play an important role in explaining human behavior in general and emotional alterations in particular.

As we have seen, according to cognitive restructuring they are not the events per se those responsible for our emotional and behavioral reactions. It would be the expectations and interpretations of these events, along with the beliefs related to them, that are responsible for how we feel and what we do.

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