The new approach of Mindfulness Neuro linguistic Programming combined with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps heal various cognitive distortions and mental disorders, says Dr Vihan Sanyal
The quality of your thoughts determines your mental wellbeing. let’s look at how our mind works. Common errors many of us make in thinking and the role psychotherapy plays in improving mental wellbeing.
Main Parts Of The MindIJ
Our mind is known to have three main parts—
The conscious: Our conscious mind communicates through thoughts, words, images and through movement. It is at the surface level and in the present moment. It, however, constitutes to be only 10 per cent of our mind.
The sub-conscious: The sub-conscious is at a deeper level of our mind and is primarily concerned with recent memories.
The unconscious: Our unconscious mind is an area where all of our past memories and experiences are stored. These also include repressed and forgotten experiences and memories. Our entire belief system is formed from a lifetime of experiences and memories. They influence our actions and behaviours on a day to day level.
The mind is an operating system, it influences and impacts every aspect of our life, including our body. The unconscious mind is of immense importance to my work. It is where the solution lies to most of the challenges my clients face in life.
Cognitive Skills & errors
Cognitive skills are the skills our brain uses in order to remember things. It also allows us to think, learn new things, to focus and to concentrate.
Thinking errors, also known as cognitive biases or cognitive distortions, are thoughts which are irrational in nature. These thought distortions either cause mental disorders like depression or are a result of a chemically altered mind of a person suffering from clinical depression.
Negative thinking is a bi-product of cognitive distortions. Our reality and perceptions become clouded as a result of such negative thoughts. This often results in mood disorders and fuel symptoms of depression.
Common errors in thinking:
Dichotomous thinking: This is also known as black or white thinking, it is when people think of extremes. They don’t see a middle possibility. It is also referred to as All or Nothing thinking. For example, a person in love thinks if they did not get married to the person they are currently in love with, then their life will no longer be worth living.
Catastrophising: Thinking of the worst possible outcome and thinking if the worst thing happened in the future how it would be a disaster. For example, a person who is about to give a job interview thinks that the interview is likely to be a disaster and this would mean they don’t get the job which would then mean that they are not likely to ever get a job.
Emotional reasoning: This is when thinking is driven by emotions. Suspicious thinking, for example, if a spouse comes home late repeatedly from work and it makes the other person feel that it’s because of an affair (when the fact may be due to work pressure and requirement of meeting deadlines).
Should and oughts: This is when you set standards of outcomes of behaviour for yourself and for others around you (without checking facts). For instance, a person believes that he should visit the temple everyday or he should come and say sorry to me for his actions.
Minimising and Maximising: This is when the person thinks every error they make in life is a big error and when they achieve positive results, they think that these achievements are not good enough.
Fortune-telling: A person tends to predict a negative outcome of situations. For example, if a partner fails to call the person at specific times, the person with this thinking style is likely to conclude that they no longer love them and are losing interest in them and this is the reason for them not to have called at the specific time.
Most of the cases that I’ve treated have exhibited some form of cognitive dissonance. I have found that errors in thinking to be the primary reason behind many of relationship disturbances. I often quote the following words of Shakespeare from Hamlet to be clients that ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
Treatment
The most common form of psychotherapy used to treat cognitive distortions is known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It has derived from cognitive and behavioral schools of psychology.
The CBT is scientific in its methodology. It looks at solving problems based on the thinking of the individual and the actions taken by them in various situations. It then looks at measuring possible changes in thought and behaviour during the therapeutic process.
The client and the therapist compare progress in therapy towards the desired goal through these measurements. The client is set regular homework assignments which they need to complete before the next session and the therapist works on the completed assignments with the client during therapy. The client has an active role to play throughout therapy.
The CBT is also used to treat a wide variety of mental disorders like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, mood disorders and eating disorders. It can also be useful in treating cases of addiction and of preventing mental illness.
I tend to use a combination of CBT and Mindfulness Neuro linguistic Programming (MNlP) in my work. I prefer to use MNlP more than CBT because CBT works only with the conscious mind, while MNlP goes much deeper and works with the person’s sub-conscious and unconscious minds. Treating the client with the best possible tool is of key importance and a skilled therapist will know when to use which tool to help ease the discomforts of his clients.
The writer is an eminent psychotherapist from Mumbai