BPDRecovery.com: Forums

Doesn't CBT say that thoughts come before feelings, and that when we change our thoughts, our feelings change? Am I mixed up? Isn't this what CBT is about? I can't find my Feeling Good book by Burns right now, but I recall that's the basis of CBT.

Or, do we feel the feeling first, then determine the thoughts to see if they are untwisted?

Is it like the chicken or the egg? Which came first?

I copied this from a CBT website of National Associationo of Congnitive-Behavioral Therapists (http://www.nacbt.org):



I guess you have to ascribe to this type of therapy to buy into what they say. I know that for me, I can have a thought and then it produces a feeling. But sometimes I have a feeling and then it produces a thought. I don't know why it has to be just one way.

When I have free-floating anxiety, it is a physical feeling. It just happens - it is not caused by a thought. Then what I might do is attach a thought to it - "this is bad" or "I can do something to feel better."

I guess it's all what you believe and what type of therapy your T does. My T has never said specifically that he does CBT therapy.

Thanks for posting that. My T never said she does CBT either, but many times she told me that I could change my thoughts to change my feelings. I remember when I first told her that I would be devastated to quit therapy, she said I could change my thoughts about feeling that way. So I guess she does believe in CBT.

Are you sure you're not thinking about anything right before you realize that you're anxious?

When I first had CBT, I was taught that thoughts, feelings, behaviours and some physical symptoms all affect each other. We weren't told that one always comes first, just that thoughts and behaviours are the part you can directly change, and then this will influence the way you feel.

I have come across some CBT resources that say thoughts always come first, and cause feelings, but I personally don't agree with that. I think it depends on the situation and can be a chicken and egg scenario. What I do know is that challenging and reframing my thoughts is a fantastic tool against depression.

I've written some more on my understanding of CBT here:
http://www.siriusproject.org/cbtskills.html

No, much of my anxiety is free-floating - no particular cause. It's a physical manifestation. I feel it, usually in the pit of my stomach, first. That's why I've had so much trouble dealing with anxiety. Most people tell you to think about what is causing the anxiety - e.g. a test you have to take, speaking in front of a group, etc. - but that is not what occurs with me. Here is what I copied from the Mental Health Channel regarding General Anxiety Disorder:



Sometimes I do experience anxiety due to thinking about something in particular or being worried about something. But that's different from the free-floating stuff. In both instances, though, I am trying to learn how to deal with it by doing breathing exercises and using Radical Acceptance.

I, too, have been taught that thoughts cause feelings. I've also been taught that feelings which are knee-jerk responses to events don't preclude the fact that thoughts cause feelings. It's strictly a matter that the thoughts are sub-conscious and often a result of an event that left a huge imprint upon us. Abandoment is probably, for me, the biggest example of this.

When my abandoment fears kick in it feels like an automatic response to the event. The thoughts that brought those feelings up are seldom easy to identify (tho a bit better with therapy and a lot of self-examination).

I do believe that this is one reason why it's always recommended to sit with the feelings- give a chance for the feelings to settle and let the thoughts surface.

In cases of being triggered however, the fact usually is that the feelings are so overwhelming and intense, the thoughts are not within reach. And it may take a lot more than sitting with the feelings it sort out what is going on.

Another interesting aspect of this for me is when feelings get confused with thoughts. I've seen times when my feelings, if I express them, are recognized by others as thoughts when in fact I've not even yet identifed the thought that has brought on the feeling. Perhaps that is a symantics issue ? (given the nature of our language when words can take on various forms- nouns, adverbs, adjectives?)

None of this is easy for those of us who are not able to identify their feelings very readily.

I looked at the introduction to Feeling Good, and it says feelings are caused by thoughts, but what it contrasts that with is the idea of feelings being caused by circumstances. Feelings aren't caused by circumstances, but by our thoughts in response to those circumstances.

I do think it goes both ways. Thoughts affect feelings and feelings affect thoughts. I'm inclined to say that usually (but not always) thoughts come first. Though not always conscious thoughts. And sometimes feelings really do come first. Like if we aren't feeling well. That can affect our emotions without thoughts being involved, I think.

The important part, as far as pratical use, is that we can change our feelings by changing our thoughts. I've had many times when changing my thinking about a situation has brought me peace where I'd had confusion.

I think it's more, we often tend to express feelings by embedding them in thoughts. If I say, "My friend D is a jerk" there's both a thought and a feeling expressed. If I were expressing a thought alone, I'd probably be more specific, rather than using the descriptively vague word jerk. If I were expressing feelings alone, I'd use an "I" statement. "I am really frustrated with my friend D."

And on the internet, with no tone of voice, I think to readers sometimes the thought part of those thought/emotions communications comes out more strongly than the emotion part. Like if I write "I think H doesn't like me", I may think it with a lot of emotion, and even feel like I'm expressing my feelings, but what the reader sees is the thought. Any thought the reader has about how I feel is a guess or a projection.

in my opinion, thoughts come first.

and i did a exercise here on this, you would be surprised how hard it is but it sure taught me a lot.

feelings are described with one word.

thoughts are more than one.

feelings are "i feel...." much harder than it sounds. try it! you will learn a lot in seeing the diff in the 2. thoughts are very diff than a feeling.

I think I am using the word "feeling" differently than you are. For me, the "feeling" is not a word, it is a physical sensation. Then the thought comes after that.

my def is a feeling is a emotion, altho sometimes very hard to name or know. a lot mask as others, angry and others are secondary to another basic feeling.

I see Jody. You are using "feeling" to mean an emotion. I am using "feeling" to mean a physical sensation.

Wow! Thanks for all the interesting replies to my question. I also have trouble identifying my feelings; often they are thoughts and not feelings. Usually in therapy when any of my Ts asked how I felt about something I would answer with a thought. I like what you said, Jody, about a feeling being 1 word. Any more is a thought. I'm going to remember that!

BG: I understand now that by feeling you mean a sensation, not an emotion. I'm not invalidating that you feel anxiety as a sensation, but it would make sense to me that underneath those sensations are thoughts and feelings that bring it on even if you aren't aware of them. Is that possible, or is free-floating anxiety completely physical?

try this, wondering. i forget who, suggested it to me and i did it on the board, and it was HARD but man, it taught me a ton about identifying feelings and thoughts.

take something you post. your thread, if possible. then go thru the post, and take each thing you said and do it as a feeling..then the thought behind it.

i sure learned a ton from doing that. i just forget where i did it at on here....lol.....or who got me to do it.

BG, here is alink i found. Causes

GAD is associated with irregular levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that carry signals across nerve endings. Neurotransmitters that seem to involve anxiety include norepinephrine, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), and serotonin.

GAD=free floating anxiety. it seems to be a physical thing, a brain chemical thing, and not resulting from a buried emotion. maybe that helps ya.

http://www.mentalhealthchannel.net/gad/index.shtml

there is a lot of results if you search it..........

To me, free-floating anxiety is physical. I get the physical sensation first. It is a chemical thing in my body. Whatever thoughts I attach to them come afterwards. They are not a response to a thought.

Sometimes I do have anxiety that is related to a thought first. But the free-floating anxiety is not. It's purely physical, at first.

Thanks Jody for that link. I can't read it right now (I have to go to the dentist) but I will later (when I wake up from the anesthesia)!!!!

I believe thoughts are what causes feelings and that changing our thoughts can change our feelings. Our thoughts happen so quickly that we can often reach a conclusion without breaking down the thoughts first so that it might appear the feelings come first with the thoughts following.

When I was in the "family meeting" with my daughter at the psychiatric hospital where she was being held involuntarily, the issue of her using drugs and alcohol came up. According to my daughter she has been drinking since she was 12 and yet I have never seen any symptoms of intoxication in those 5 years, although I suppose I might have missed it if she was only mildly intoxicated and I assumed her behavior was merely typical "teenage rebellion" (I started passing out drunk at home and at school in the fifth grade but then my alcoholic father was the one who handed me a drink when I was upset about something)! When the psychiatrist said something to the effect that my daughter has been leading a "double life" I immediately started thinking that my being mental has somehow caused her to be mental and that living with a mental person drove her to use alcohol as a means of escape (I do not drink at home so she has not had modeling of alcoholic behavior or access to alcohol at home but she is genetically predisposed to being alcoholic). I was taking complete responsibility for all my daughter's problems because I believed I was to blame by thinking how unfortunate it was that she has had to live with me all her life. Whenever I get into the "it's my fault" thinking, my "solution" to the "problem" (myself) is that I should die because it would be best for others if they did not have to deal with my mental illness (I don't want to deal with it so why should they have to deal with it). There I was trying to support my daughter in a psychiatric hospital, a place I never expected to see her, and yet all I could think was that killing myself would solve everything while regretting that I had survived my last suicide attempt. It was not until I spoke to my daughter yesterday (she was released on Monday) that I realized that the source of her depression is not living with me but the fear of losing me! For some reason that had not occurred to me because I was seeing myself as the problem and not my past suicide attempts as the problem. Since my husband has also been suicidal at times, my daughter has been living with this overwhelming fear that we will die and leave her alone, not that we have been making her life some sort of living hell by being a part of her life!

Often when our thinking results in overwhelming feelings, it is because we are coming to false conclusions based on the evidence. It takes a willingness to "re-frame" a situation before we can begin to see the mistakes in our faulty logic. Sometimes it is possible to identify specific words that "trigger" irrational thinking (for me it was thinking of "double life" in terms of "split personality") and sometimes it is harder to understand why we have responded the way we have. It can often be a case of misunderstanding a person's behavior based on our own assumptions. For example, if someone were to throw themselves at you in a way that caused you to fall down flat with the person on top of you, the assumption might be that the person was trying to injure you in some way or that they were not paying attention and that their behavior was an accident. At yet, how many times have we seen this same behavior in movies when someone is trying to save the life of a loved one by using their own body as a shield? While we might at first respond with screaming and trying to get the person off of us, we would later realize the motive behind their action in order to see it as a means of protection rather than injury. It is often our past experiences that determine how we respond in current situations and it takes changing our thinking in order to change our "conditioned" response.

I have had many times where I was able to identify a particular trigger and then worked on changing my thoughts when experiencing the trigger, usually when my response is embarrassing to me because it is not viewed as "socially acceptable" behavior under the circumstances. When I was first court-ordered to attend AA meetings and had to stay afterwards to get my card signed, I was not familiar with the concept of people hugging each other after such meetings (it still seems strange to me for people to embrace a relative stranger that way). When someone came towards me with their arms outstretched, I would "duck and cover" rather than to exchange a hug with the person. I soon learned to tell approaching people that "I don't do hugs" in order to have them leave me alone and eventually I have gotten to the point where I can brace myself for a hug and get though it without embarrassing myself in an obvious way.

Sometimes being aware of a trigger can cause us to be a bit more "gun shy" for awhile, though. I have had the experience of responding to an action accompanied by a known trigger (someone putting their hand into their pocket, for example, when I was triggered by jingling change or keys) and I nearly freaked out in church when my pastor reached for his pocket during a sermon, LOL. In such situations, I have had to force my thoughts away from my natural thoughts by inserting artificial thoughts into my head so that I have the opportunity to "think before I act" rather than embarrass myself with an automatic response. As long as I can keep up a stream of rational thoughts ("you are safe") to counter the irrational thoughts ("you are in danger") I can avoid feeling so overwhelmed by the chemical reaction in my brain that happens before I can start this thought process.

The chemical response, triggered in the "fight or flight" mechanism, is far faster than our thoughts and that is why we tend to think that we are responding to a feeling rather than a thought. We can sometimes process the chemicals in our brains as feelings (fear, anxiety, etc.) rather than looking at the thoughts, based on past experiences, that are actually attributed to the resulting feelings. The chemical itself is not a "feeling" but we can respond as if it were a feeling and cause ourselves to feel particular ways as a result. In studies where a sound is followed by a painful shock, an animal becomes conditioned to jump at the sound even when the shock is not administered. When a sound is followed by something more pleasant (food usually but in some cases a drug) the animal will respond to the sound in the way it was conditioned (by salivating even when no food is presented or becoming "high" without the drug being administered). It is the unique thought process involved in learning that results in the conditioned response rather than the stimulus itself.

Often two people respond to the same stimulus in very different ways. Some people pay money to listen to certain types of music that others would avoid whenever possible. It is not likely that our human bodies are responding in such different ways if we were physically experiencing an event the same way. Our thoughts of "I love this music" or "I hate this music" is what is motivating our behavior, even if we do not have the conscious thought in our heads while listening to the music. I have a strong aversion to the color red but many people like the color and will even identify it as their favorite color. Pain is one of the most universal experiences our bodies respond to and yet people experience pain in very different ways as well. Some people are so stimulated by pain that they can have an orgasm while a dentist is drilling a hole in a tooth to fill a cavity while other people are afraid of visiting their dentist for fear that they will experience something painful while there.

As humans our feelings are influenced by our thoughts. When I am having a flashback, I experience the same feelings I did during actual experiences even though my physical body is not being stimulated to respond in any way. People reading or hearing the same words will gain different meanings and have different feelings about the message and the person delivering the message. If our feelings were not the result of our thoughts but merely caused by some physical stimulus, how would you account for the mixture of feelings we feel while reading a book or watching a movie? How would you account for strong feelings we have for a particular person over another person? How would you account for sexual arousal without stimulating the genitals (I read somewhere that the most important sex organ is our mind)? Our minds are filled with thoughts we don't even know we are thinking most of the time and those thoughts are what make up our individual realities.

This post contains my own thoughts as I have experienced them while typing. It is likely that no two people reading my words will respond in the same manner and that is the result of their own thoughts forming in their minds as they read my thoughts. Some people will not even read my words due to personal beliefs such as my post is too long, my writing style is too difficult to understand, my words are not a part of their vocabulary and therefore lack meaning, my post does not support their own conclusions and they have already made up their mind, my thoughts have stung them in the past when they read my words, the time it would take to read and understand my words would use up too much of their day, etc., while other people may read my post more than once and interpret it differently each time, even though the words and the order they are written will not have changed at all. It is my belief that our thoughts determine the way we feel based on my own knowledge and experiences.

Denim, I am going to reply more later when I have more time, but I wanted you to know that I think your post is excellent, and worthy of being published! Thank you so much for sharing your ideas and experiences.

Thanks for the link Jody. I just read it. I had been diagnosed with GAD in the past. I spoke to my T again about it yesterday. I have to radically accept that I have this problem and learn to live with it. Learn technqiues to accept it as it is. Some days are better than others.