Execute an experiment. Charlotte devises a list of physical sensations, including many of those that she worries about herself. Her checklist requires people to tick whether they’ve ever experienced the sensation and to indicate how long they might leave it before consulting their doctor about such sensations. She asks ten people to fill out her questionnaire.
Examine the results. Charlotte’s shocked that many people reported experiencing some of the bodily sensations she described and stated that they’d leave going to their doctor for several days, or even weeks. Some people reported that they probably wouldn’t bother seeing their doctor at all regarding some sensations. Charlotte concludes that perhaps she’s worrying too much about her health and plans to delay consulting her doctor when she next has unexplained physical sensations. Her strength of belief in her original prediction reduces to 30 per cent.
Making Observations
Observations can be an easier way of getting started with doing experiments to test out the validity of your thoughts. Observations usually involve collecting evidence related to a specific thought by watching other people in action.
You may assume, for example, that no one in their right mind would admit to not understanding an important point about a work procedure. If they did, they’d no doubt be ridiculed and promptly sacked on the basis of highlighting their incompetence.
Test this assumption by observing what other people actually do. Behave like a scientist and gather evidence of others admitting lack of understanding, asking for clarification or owning up to mistakes. Observe whether your prediction that they’ll be ridiculed or fired is accurate. Making observations to gather evidence both for and against your assumptions is another way of behaving like a scientist.
Ensuring Successful Behavioural Experiments
To get the highest level of benefit when designing and carrying out behavioural experiments, keep the following in mind:
Ensure that the type of experiment you choose is appropriate. Make your experiments challenging enough for you to gain a sense of accomplishment from conducting them. Equally, take care to devise experiments that won’t overwhelm you.
Have a clear plan about how, when and where (and with whom, if relevant) you plan to carry out your experiment.
Be clear and specific about what you want to find out from your experiment – ‘to see what happens’ is too vague.
Decide in advance how you’ll know whether your prediction comes true. For example, what are the clues that someone’s thinking critically of you?
Plan what you’ll do if your prediction comes true. For example, how do you respond assertively if someone is actually critical of you?
Use the behavioural experiments record sheet in the following section to plan and record your experiment.
Consider what obstacles may interrupt your experiment and how you can overcome them.
When evaluating the outcome of your experiment, check that you’re not being biased (for example, discounting the positive or mind-reading, thinking errors we describe in Chapter 2) in the way you process your results.
Consider whether you rely on any (including subtle) safety behaviours. Safety behaviours can affect the results of your experiment or determine how confident you feel about the outcome – for example, thinking that you avoided collapsing by concentrating hard rather than discovering conclusively that your feelings of dizziness are a result of anxiety, not imminent fainting.
Plan ways to consolidate what you discover from your experiment. For example, should you repeat the experiment, devise a new experiment, change your daily activities or some other action?
Treating your negative and unhelpful thoughts with scepticism is a key to reducing their emotional impact. Experiments can help you to realise that many of your negative thoughts and predictions are not accurate in reality. Therefore, we suggest you take many of your negative thoughts with a pinch or more of salt.
Keeping Records of Your Experiments
All good scientists keep records of their experiments. If you do the same, you can look back over your results in order to
Draw conclusions.
Decide what kind of experiment you may want to conduct next in order to gather more information.
Remind yourself that many of your negative predictions won’t come true.
To help you keep records of your experiments, photocopy Figure 4-1, and use it as often as you like, following the instructions in the figure.
DON’T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT …
This book’s full of suggestions on how to reduce and overcome emotional problems. If you’re sceptical about whether CBT can work for you, you’re in very good company. However, loads of scientific evidence shows that CBT is more effective than all other psychotherapies.
So, CBT may well work for you, but how can you tell? The answer is to consider applying a specific tool or technique for a period of time as an experiment to see how the technique works for you. Depending on the outcome, you can then choose to do more, modify your approach or try something different.
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 4-1: Photocopy and fill in your own Behavioural Experiment Record Sheet.
Chapter 5
Pay Attention! Refocusing and Retraining Your Awareness
IN THIS CHAPTER
