Process - Physician - Fraser Health Authority

THINKING REALISTICALLYStep 3: Learn to challenge these depressive thoughts and replace themwith fair and realistic ones.Challenging depressive thoughts involves deliberatelyrethinking the situation that got you upset. To do thisyou can use a strategy called Challenging DepressiveThoughts. Take a piece of paper and divide it intocolumns, like the example below. There’s a sampleof this form at the back of the manual. Feel free tophotocopy it if you wish.Challenging Depressive ThoughtsSituation: Friend cancels lunch date.DEPRESSIVE THOUGHTShe doesn’t like me.(Mind-reading)No one likes me. I’m unlikable.(Overgeneralization)The world is a cold and rejecting place.(Catastrophizing)I’ll always be alone.(Fortune-Telling)REALISTIC THOUGHTI don’t know why she cancelled; maybesomething urgent came up. It’s only lunch.Some people do seem to like me, so I mustbe likable.This lunch doesn’t mean much about the worldas a whole. I’ve been accepted before.I can’t tell the future. One lunch doesn’t mean noone will ever like me.First, make a brief note of the situation. Some examples: “Talking to daughter,” “Walking to work,” “Planning tomake dinner.” Next, write down the negative thoughts that seem related to how you feel. If you like, you can tryto classify the type of distortion involved (as shown above).Finally, think about the situation and try to come up with a more fair and realistic assessment of the situation.Hint: Depressive thinking often goes way beyond the facts. Often the fair and realistic thought is simply to remindyourself that you don’t have enough information to know for certain what’s happening. “I don’t know why shecancelled lunch; there might be hundreds of possible reasons.”SELF-CARE DEPRESSION PROGRAM34 ANTIDEPRESSANT SKILLS WORKBOOK