Fear Fantasy – tackle negative beliefs

I recently read a book which included this fantastic exercise for dealing with negative thoughts particularly in the area of self esteem, and assertiveness and confidence.

The thing is, we criticize ourselves with much harsher words than we would criticize others. We also tell ourselves far more negative things than we would tell others. Imagine telling a friend "Don’t go to the supermarket, you won’t be able to cope!" we would just never do it!

In order to show ourselves how faulty some of our thinking is, we can have a dialogue, either in our heads, out loud, or on paper, in which we play the role of someone who believe is criticizing us, putting us down, or thinks bad of us.

Now, what we have to do is, as the other person, tell ourselves the worst possible things to see how ridiculous it is. Let’s imagine we are worried about panicking in the supermarket and making a scene in front of lots of people. The dialogue between you and a person that sees you and who you imagine is critical of you might go something like this: (Let’s call the critical person Frank).

You: Oh my god, I’m having a panic attack, I think I’m going crazy.

Frank: What?! Are you some kind of freak or something? I’m going to call security.

You: No please, It’s just a panic attack it happens all the time. I need some fresh air and sip of water.

Frank: You need a mental hospital! I’m going to tell everyone to steer clear of you and I’m going to tell your boss your nuts and I’m going to tell the police what a psycho you are. Maybe you should be in an institution. You definitely shouldn’t be allowed out shopping alone.

etc. etc.

Continue this dialogue for as long as you want to. Really give the character that is criticizing you a lot of venom.

There’s a reason for doing this. The idea here is that you take it to the worst level that you can possibly imagine. Then take it to an even worse level, really try and go crazy.

Why am I doing this you ask? Well, this is an example of something called "Paradoxical Intention". Often with anxiety and panic we spend a lot of energy desperately trying to stop feeling a certain way. When we try and force ourselves to feel a certain way or to not feel a certain way tend to actually make ourselves feel worse. Paradoxical Intention can help us see how wrong we are. It can help the negative thoughts clear as we actually see how ridiculous they are. You can try it in many situations. And it’s good to start with something small. If you are a bit afraid of spiders why not try to enhance your fear of a little spider by imagining it bigger and with bigger teeth. Really over do it! You will then see how hard it can be to be scared!

Remember to start of something easy, and always discuss new techniques and ideas with your doctor or therapist.

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