Tapping, Refuting, and Replacing a Negative Internal Dialogue

In this article you will learn to tap into your internal dialogue and acknowledge if what you are telling yourself is positive or negative, and logical or irrational. If what you are telling yourself is negative and/or irrational, you will learn to replace the cognition with a more accurate and reflective appraisal. This ability to think about your own thinking is referred to as metacognition. Metacognition is an important technique to acquire in combating pessimism, low self-esteem, and depression. Perfecting the following cognitive therapeutic technique will enable you to improve your mood, be optimistic, increase your self-esteem, and live a depression-free life.

Tapping into Your Internal Dialogue
All of us have engaged in metacognition and have probably not even noticed. For example, have you ever met someone who is rude, obnoxious, and arrogant? While you listened to this person speak you probably thought to yourself, “What a jerk this person is.” That thought to yourself (i.e., “What a jerk this person is”) is your internal dialogue.

Internal dialogue, the voice within your mind, is also referred to as self-talk and automatic thoughts. They are your perceptions from events and situations that occur automatically in your mind. Internal dialogue, self-talk, or automatic thoughts, whichever you refer to it as, (1) occurs naturally in everyone and is not an abnormal behavior, (2) occurs consistently, whether you are consciously or unconsciously aware of its presence, and (3) consists of both positive and negative statements. To clarify, I am not referring to any external auditory cues, per say an auditory hallucination, in which a person perceives to hear an external voice. On the contrary, internal cognitions naturally and consistently occur.

Negative self-talk and irrational beliefs are associated with problematic situations. When you feel upset, angry, irritated, sad, depressed, lonely, hopeless, helpless, worthless, or that you do not belong you may be responding with automatic thoughts, which are negative. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge what you are saying to yourself as you experience these feelings. For the following exercise keep a journal and focus in on any problematic situations that arise. Notice your feelings from the situation and your automatic thoughts based from your feelings. Journalize these for the next five days. Do not become overwhelmed if you find you have lots of negative automatic thoughts, but be sure to write them down, so that we can address them later. Below is an example on how to setup your journal.

Example for Journal Exercise:
Situation

Feeling

Self-Talk/Automatic Thoughts

For example, individuals who feel as if they do not belong or are accepted at their job because coworkers did not ask if they wanted to hangout after work may engage in negative automatic thoughts. The journal entry may read something like the following.

Situation
My coworkers didn’t ask if I wanted to join them after work to hangout and socialize.

Feeling
Unaccepted
Depressed

Self-Talk/Automatic Thoughts
“It’s because I am not as funny as the others.”
“I am not meant to belong and have friends.”

This may trigger other negative internal dialogue and elicit other feelings, such as:

Feeling
Depressed
Worthless

Self-Talk/Automatic Thoughts
“I am unlikable as a person.”
“I am not worthy of a person to have friends.”

The following example illustrates that one situation can trigger several feelings as well as additional self-talk. Therefore, when you are journalizing beware of all feelings and self-talk that you are experiencing and be sure to write them down.

Cognitively depressed persons focus on the negativity around them, causing their thinking to become twisted and irrational. In applying this to the example above, notice how the thinking has become twisted. The depressed person tells them self, “I am not worthy of a person to have friends,” based solely from the situation, “My coworkers didn’t ask if I wanted to join them after work to hangout and socialize.” Clearly there is no proof for the self-talk based on the situation stated, indicating that this pattern of thinking is distorted and irrational.

Now personalizing this for yourself, do you want to believe such irrational thoughts, which are twisted and distorted from situations? Do you want to engage in unnecessary and erroneous beliefs causing you to miss the brighter side to life’s offerings? Therefore it is the important to address and change these irrational beliefs and thoughts.

Refuting Negative and Irrational Thoughts
To be sure if a thought or belief is irrational, ask yourself a series of questions. By applying the questions below you will be determining the factuality behind each negative automatic thought or irrational belief. The following questions are supposed to make you think more objectively and optimistically. The questions require proof for the continuation of the thought or belief, otherwise there is no dispute that it is unrealistic, irrational, or distorted and needs to be replaced. Go through each of your automatic thoughts from your journal exercise and apply the questions below. Be honest and open-minded as you are applying these questions. Base your answers on factual information that you know and not from assumptions, presumptions, guesses, intuition, or feelings. Write the answers out and determine the amount of truth, if any, for the automatic thought. If the thought is found to be not true or only holds a little truth, it will be replaced.

1. What factual information do you have for the automatic thought?
2. Do you have any doubt the automatic thought is true?
3. What evidence exists that contradicts the automatic thought? (Yes there will be contradicting evidence!)
4. What behaviors created, promoted, or allowed the situation to arise?
5. How often does this automatic thought occur?
6. Have you been wrong about this thought before?
7. Other than your automatic thought, what alternative inferences can be made from the situation?
8. What factual information, if any, do you have to support these alternative inferences?
9. Are any of these alternatives better appraisals to the situation?
10. What would you tell a friend who was in your exact situation?

After reviewing your responses, would you say your automatic thought accurately reflected the situation, had little merit, or was completely erroneous? For those thoughts that you have found held little merit or were completely erroneous acknowledge their need to be replaced.

Replacing Negative and Irrational Thoughts
Now it is time to change your negative automatic thoughts to more accurate and reflective appraisals. These new appraisals are referred to as positive cognitive statements. Saying these positive cognitive statements in lieu of the negative counterparts is crucial in changing your cognitions. Consider the replacement of your negative automatic thoughts as a self-defense to your internal critic. Through utilizing your positive cognitive statement you are essentially talking back to that critic. However, when talking back to your internal critic use a pleasant, calm and undemanding tone. Lastly, be sure to write the positive cognitive statement in your journal next to the original negative thought.

Using the example given earlier, the accurate positive cognitions would be:
“At times I can be funny.”
“I do belong.”
“I am meant to have friends.”
“I am worthy to have friends.”
“I am a good friend.”
“I am a likable, interesting, and unique person.”

More than likely when you initially refute and replace an automatic thought you will still be apt to thinking the original negative cognition. This is due to the fact you have been repeating this negative cognition to yourself for a lengthy period of time. Therefore it is important to acknowledge the negative cognition every time it arises. Since you already discovered the thought to be irrational and distorted you do not have to repeat the above processes every time hereafter. Simply acknowledge the negative cognition and automatically replace it with a positive, realistic, and accurate alternative. For example, a woman whose negative cognition is, “No guy is ever going to marry me,” already knows the automatic thought is not true. Therefore, she replaces it with a more rational response, “There is a guy in this world that I will marry, but first I have to keep going on dates until I find him.” By acknowledging and replacing you will soon acquire the positive thought amongst your cognitions and will discard the old negative thought.