John R. Cook, Ph.D.
Registered Psychologist

You will recall from The Work Horse of Anxiety Treatments article, how we compared the problem of anxiety with that of a false alarm, and talked about treating the problem by dividing it up into three parts. The first part, introduced in the Getting Rid of Those Heeby Jeebies article, was about the physical sensations associated with being tense and "on edge". The second part is the topic of this and the next article. It concerns the mistaken information we have about our false alarms – the things we say to ourselves that make us feel anxious. These thinking errors are often so habitual and automatic that they can be difficult to identify. One way is to engage in backwards reasoning such as asking ourselves, "If I am thinking something that is making me anxious, what might it be?".

The mother of all mistaken beliefs for many anxious people is that our false alarms are harmful to our physical or mental well-being, and that they will eventually push us "over the edge". This is for the most part untrue. Anxious people are, as a group, among the most resilient and mentally strong. While anxiety attacks are undeniably distressing, you can be sure that nature would not equip us with a security system that had the potential to harm us. As loud and obnoxious as it may be, when the fire alarm bell rings in our office building or outside our apartment, it somehow seems less bothersome once we are told it is being set off by work crews testing the system. We have to give ourselves a similar message when anxiety strikes. It's just a false alarm!

This mistaken belief about anxiety illustrates two main types of thinking errors. The first is our tendency to believe that dangerous events are far more likely to occur than they really are. In this case, we jump to conclusions about anxiety being harmful. This type of thinking error is called probability over-estimation. Another example of probability over-estimation is thinking the airplane you are about to board will crash. While an airplane crash is undeniably a seriously threatening event, we know that it is statistically very unlikely to occur. In fact, flying is one of the safest forms of travel available to us. We are more likely to be seriously injured or killed in the drive to or from the airport.

The second main type of thinking error is our tendency to believe we are far less capable of coping with challenging events than we really are. In the case of our mistaken belief about anxiety, we blow things out of proportion by saying to ourselves that we'll be pushed "over the edge". We make mountains out of mole hills. This type of thinking error is called catastrophizing. Another example of catastrophizing is thinking the worst will happen when we are late for a date. That person will surely never want to meet with us again, and will tell other people about our lack of consideration. Once the word is out, no one will want to befriend us and we will die lonely and miserable. Clearly, catastrophizing thinking errors provide anxiety sufferers opportunities to display their creativity and imagination!

Now that you know how to recognize your faulty thinking, the next step is to learn how to challenge it. Watch for instructions on how to do this in the next article entitled Challenging Our Anxious Thoughts. If your problem can't wait, give us a call at 881-1206 for a free 20-minute consultation with me, or check out some of our program offerings at Fear Doctor Seminars.