{"id":741,"date":"2009-11-11T08:43:08","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T20:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/?p=741"},"modified":"2009-11-23T08:51:28","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T20:51:28","slug":"thinking-accurately-and-believably","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Thinking accurately and believably"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An often heard piece of advice given to people who are feeling depressed or anxious or struggling in some way is to \u201cthink positively\u201d. It is not necessarily bad advice and if it\u2019s easy to do then it will probably help. However it is not easy to do. The main reason for this is that our thinking really defines who we are \u2013 our opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and our conscious stream of thought are what make us unique. To change them is no easy matter. A more appropriate goal is to \u201cthink accurately\u201d. The main problem with \u201cnegative thinking\u201d is that it is inaccurate. One of the main tasks in therapy with clients who are depressed or anxious is to help them identify the inaccuracy in their thinking (for example the over-prediction of threat or danger, or the negative evaluation of their own worth). The next step is to change their thinking so that it is accurate, not necessarily positive. In fact it is more important that their thinking is accurate and realistic because their thinking also needs to be <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">believable<\/span>. There\u2019s no point in helping someone to think in a different manner if they can\u2019t believe it, because they won\u2019t be able to maintain it.<\/p>\n<p>So the goal should be accurate and believable thinking, and if possible, positive thinking, but it shouldn\u2019t be positive at the expense of being accurate and believable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adults","category-young-adults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevingarner.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}