Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organised 3

Part I Understanding Depression and How It Develops 3

Part II Putting What You Discover into Action 3

Part III Maintaining Momentum 4

Part IV The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Where to Go from Here 5

Part I Understanding Depression and How It Develops 7

Chapter 1 Introducing Moods and Depression 9

Recognising the Differences: Sadness, Misery and Depression 9

Meeting sadness and misery 10

Experiencing depression 11

Making Sense of Your Symptoms 14

Prolonging a low mood 15

Changing weight 15

Suffering disturbed sleep 15

Lacking pleasure or enjoyment 16

Feeling tired all the time 17

Enduring aches and pains 17

Being unable to concentrate 18

Wanting not to be around people 18

Stopping the world (I want to get off): Suicidal thoughts 19

Thinking About Your Own Depression 19

Discovering how your experience fits with the theory 20

Hot cognitions 20

Core beliefs 22

Assessing what's keeping you stuck 23

A CBT model of depression 24

Measuring up 26

Balancing your lifestyle: What's missing 27

Chapter 2 Introducing the Basic Principles of CBT 29

Becoming Your Own Therapist 30

Separating Depression into Three Domains 31

Defining problems and setting goals 33

Understanding the thought-feeling connection 34

Investigating the feeling-behaviour connection 38

Stopping the Depressive Spiral 42

Part II Putting What You Discover into Action 45

Chapter 3 Thinking about Thinking 47

Uncovering Your Underlying Thought Processes 48

Ouch! Encountering hot cognitions 48

Monitoring thoughts and how they make you feel 49

Identifying the triggers 50

Unearthing your underlying rules 51

Assigning blame and making misjudgements 52

Recognising Thinking Errors 52

Thinking negatively 53

Predicting the future negatively 53

Labelling negatively 54

Mind-reading the worst 55

Discounting the positive 55

Thinking exaggeratedly 56

Emotional reasoning 56

All-or-nothing thinking 57

Catastrophising 57

Over-generalising 58

Should and musts 58

Low frustration tolerance 59

Weighing up the evidence 60

Chapter 4 Changing Your Thinking to Change Your Life 61

Breaking Bad Thinking Habits 62

Putting Your Unhelpful Thoughts on Trial 62

Witnessing your thinking errors 62

Finding a rational alternative thought 67

Evaluating the alternative 70

Going Deeper to Discover Causes 70

Chapter 5 Facing Your Feelings to Tackle Depression 75

Introducing Negative Emotions 75

Discerning helpful negative emotions 76

Identifying unhelpful negative emotions 76

Seeing the value in some negative emotions 77

Seeing the Thought-Feeling and Feeling-Behaviour Connections 77

Changing your attitude 79

Persevering for improvement 80

Managing Your Emotions 80

Recognising your sensitivities by describing emotions 80

Noticing, describing and tolerating your own emotions 81

Developing emotional responsibility 91

Changing your relationship with emotions and intrusive thoughts 91

Beating brooding and worrying 92

Recognising the child within: Ego states 93

Searching for self-resilience and self-comfort 94

Hearing what the child ego state is saying or feeling 94

Listening to your parental ego state 94

Getting into the adult ego state 94

Chapter 6 Changing Your Attitudes to Combat Depression 97

Making and Maintaining Positive Changes 98

Balancing your life 98

Keeping track of the evidence 99

Accentuating the Positive: Skills to Combat Depression 100

Recognising opportunities 101

Taking an interest in life 102

Living for today 103

Becoming more friendly 104

Enjoying the good things in life 105

Relaxing when you deserve it 106

Developing humour 107

Helping out other people 108

Eliminating the Negative: Steering Clear of Dark Thoughts 109

Improving your attitude to age 109

Resisting the demand for perfection 110

Combating boredom 111

Being your own best friend 112

Chapter 7 Raising Self-Esteem to Increase Your Motivation 113

Identifying the Issues of Low Self-Esteem 114

Discovering Your True Self-Worth 116

Giving yourself credit 116

Avoiding errors when challenging low self-esteem 117

Feeling superior 117

Believing that you're special 117

Trying to control people 117

Seeking approval 117

Behaving defensively 118

Thinking that you're inferior 118

Being Kind to Yourself 118

Using unconditional self-acceptance to accept yourself 119

Moving from global statements to specific ones 121

Talking to yourself positively 121

Using the prejudice model 122

Taking one step at a time towards being content 123

Chapter 8 Developing Abilities that Challenge Depression 125

Developing Compassion for Yourself 125

Attaining acceptance mode 126

Acknowledging the positives 128

Rediscovering Your Resilience 130

Discovering the Power of Assertiveness 135

Defining assertiveness 135

Assertiveness: Beating the barriers 137

Recognising your rights 138

Trying out some tricks of the trade 140

Negative assertion 140

Broken record 140

Employing the 'I' 141

Response delay 141

Being comfortable with communicating 142

Chapter 9 Being Mindful, not Mind-full: Developing Your Awareness 143

Discovering the World of Mindfulness 144

Joining mindfulness with CBT 145

Meeting meditation and mindfulness 145

Carrying Out Activities Mindfully 146

Becoming more aware 147

Practising mindful meditation 149

Body scan exercise 149

Observing with and without judging 150

Bath-time exercise 152

Opposite action exercise 153

Letting Go of Your Demands 153

Part III Maintaining Momentum 155

Chapter 10 Discovering the New, Healthy You 157

Enjoying Your Progress 158

Making mistakes to meet your goals 158

Pursuing the positives 159

Rediscovering Relationships 160

Chapter 11 Reducing the Risk of Relapse 163

Discovering the Danger Zones 163

Planning for Prevention 165

Rallying the Troops for Support 167

Part IV The Part of Tens 169

Chapter 12 Ten Tips for Tackling Depression 171

Enjoying Physical Exercise 171

Being Kind to Yourself 172

Taking Pride in Your Appearance 172

Maintaining Your Surroundings 172

Keeping in Touch 173

Noticing the Pleasurable Small Stuff 173

Defining Your Problem Accurately 174

Enjoying the Journey 175

Doing Something New 175

Making Someone Else Happy 176

Chapter 13 Ten Tips to Challenge Distorted Thinking 177

Avoid Catastrophising 177

Think in Grey, Not Black and White 178

Correct Generalisations 179

Resist Mind-Reading 179

Switch Off Your Mental Filter 180

Reason Rationally 180

Don't Personalise Events 180

Look Ahead to Combat Awfulising 181

Stop Comparing and Despairing 181

Consider Future Possibilities 182

Appendix 183

Form 1 Your Daily Thought Record (DTR) 183

Form 2 Your Balanced Lifestyle Sheet 185

Form 3 Your Pleasure-Achievement Chart 187

Form 4 Your Ideas for Living Form 187

Form 5 Your Positive Data Log 189

Index 191