Check the Facts

How to Be Skillful in Dealing with Negative Thoughts

I recently asked the members of one of my DBT Skills groups to introduce themselves to a new client who was starting group that day by sharing their name and the favorite skill they had learned so far. Quite a few of them said the Check the Facts Skill. I can see why. Many people want help regulating their anger, anxiety, shame, and/or depression. And in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (which is incorporated into DBT), we teach that thoughts lead to emotions. So it becomes to crucial to analyze our thoughts to see if our emotions are valid or not and learn to work through it.

This is highlighted in the Check the Facts skill, which is designed to help analyze negative thoughts and see if our assumptions fit the facts. In one part of this skill, clients are asked to verbalize their interpretations after a prompting event or trigger and then see if there is a chance that these thoughts are irrational or not. Based on brain science around 80% of our thoughts are negative. So there is a good chance that just because we think it, doesn't mean it's true. This can be hard to accept though. I am seeing a lot of my clients ruminate, dwell, and act out on their negative thoughts.

I am going to share a few of the main pointers from the Check the Facts Skill that can help you in fighting, dealing with, and managing negative thoughts:

1.) Call yourself out on what kind of distortion you are engaging in. For example, it is common for clients to tell me that that they feel rejected or hurt in relationships because the other person is not responding to them like they had hoped. The negative thought might sound something like: "This person does not value me and does not want to be my friend." The type of distortion would be called Jumping to Conclusions (jumping to a negative conclusion without any definite evidence), Personalization (looking at someone's behavior as a reflection of your self-worth) or Emotional Reasoning (assuming that what you feel must be true). Just calling yourself out on the distortion can help you to see that there could be other interpretations going on. Acknowledging this can help us loosen our grip on our one thought that we could be assuming is true.

2.) Verbalize to yourself what other interpretations could exist. Rather than assuming that the first thought in our head must be true, give yourself space to label out other possible interpretations. In the above example, another interpretation could be, "This person could be going through a lot in their life right now and may not have as much for friendships as I do." This means we may need to sit with ambiguity. There could be several interpretations, and we don't know the answer.

3.) Imagine coping well with the worst case scenario. This is the exposure part of the Check the Facts skill. Here, we allow ourselves in our mind to tolerate the idea of the worst case scenario, but instead of telling ourselves that we could not cope with that, we come up with a plan where we would cope well. This piece of the skill helps us to become more resilient to the idea that even if something did not work out as planned, we have coached ourselves on a way to be skillful.

This skill takes a lot of practice and honestly--daily application. My clients in group who verbalize their thoughts out loud and are open and willing to identify any distortions and come up with other interpretations do better with regulating their emotions and not spiraling into more negative thoughts. Social support is key in being able to challenge our negative thoughts, because when we are in our own head, it's harder to see. Talking it out, being open to feedback, and loosening our grip on any negative thoughts we are holding on too tightly can help bring relief to our mood and mind.

How are you doing looking at your thoughts?

Who are the people in your life that you share your struggles with in terms of how you are thinking and feeling?

What steps can you take to improve in your ability to Check the Facts?