Identifying the hot thoughts
To you and I, Laurie’s comment about trying the Indian restaurant may seem like a fairly innocuous suggestion, but for Peter it had unleashed a flood of negative automatic thoughts. Becoming aware of this, Peter’s next task in developing his formulation was to specify the content of those thoughts.
Allowing himself to focus on Laurie’s remark and re-experience the emotions that he felt, Peter found it not too difficult to recall the conclusion that this remark had prompted: ‘She obviously didn’t like the meal tonight…’ However, Peter recognised that this thought didn’t explain the strength of his reactions. In order to isolate the NATs responsible for his negative feelings he had to dig a little deeper. He used the ...
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