Depression and The Power of Negative Thoughts

Depression is now seen as a biopsychosocial disorder, meaning that biological, psychological, and social factors may all play a part. What happens to you matters. Some of us are given much harder lives than others, and there’s no fairness in that. But how you interpret and respond to what happens, especially in relation to depression and negative thoughts, is also tremendously important.

The hopeful news is that we can learn skills that may help insulate us from depression. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying that what you do with what happens to you is paramount.

Understanding the connection between your thoughts and feelings is crucial in managing depression and negative thoughts.

Dr. Michael Yapko, a former teacher of mine and an internationally known expert on depression, identifies five patterns that can increase vulnerability to depression or make it harder to recover. This post is the first in a five-part series that will break down each of these five most common mental habits that can lead to depression, keep you depressed, or make you more vulnerable to relapse.

 

Understanding the Impact of Depression and Negative Thoughts

1. Too much of an internal orientation and a lack of cognitive flexibility
2. Generating your own stress by making bad decisions
3. Rumination and believing it’s doing some good
4. Overly global thinking
5. Unrealistic expectations

Yes, these sound clinical, so today let’s bring the first one into focus and into your real experience…and mine.

What is an “internal orientation”?

An internal orientation can happen in two ways. You can have a thought, and that thought becomes what you believe. Or you can use emotions to make decisions, meaning that you’re more governed by your emotions than anything else.

“If I feel it, it must be true.”

But that simply isn’t accurate. That doesn’t mean you should suppress your emotions. Your hurt and anger and disgust and fear do matter.

In fact, I wrote Perfectly Hidden Depression, and earlier this year my follow-up workbook was released; they are both all about the dangers of pushing away feelings (and, of course, what you can do about it).

Connecting with your emotions is critical, but that does not necessarily mean you should let them guide your decision-making.

An internal orientation is the habit of allowing thoughts or emotions to become your reality rather than giving yourself time to process other considerations. It means forgetting that there could be multiple ways to think or feel about an experience.

When anger becomes your reality

I worked with a woman several years ago who’d recently been demoted from a fairly high supervisory role to one where she was in charge of far fewer employees. In fact, the company moved away from including her in decision-making at all.

Let’s call her Deborah.

She was devastated. She’d given years of herself to this company, and she spent multiple sessions talking about her rage, anger, and sense of unfairness. She became more and more depressed.

Deborah admitted being known as a perfectionist but felt she’d run her teams effectively. She’d put off other life choices because she was highly professionally driven. She was also the primary wage earner in her family, so the demotion caused financial problems as well.

I admired the fact that she knew she had some problems interacting well with others and had attended several training workshops to learn how to be more effective.

If we look at Deborah’s situation as a way of understanding what can lead to depression, I don’t think anyone would say, “You have no right to be angry.” Of course she had reasons to be angry.

But if she over-relied on that anger, and if anger became the emotion that defined her, then her internal orientation wasn’t going to lead her away from depression. It was going to lead her straight toward it.

Her anger was also leading her to believe certain things: “They had it in for me from the very beginning.” Or, “This is my husband’s fault because my stress level was so high that I didn’t do my best work.” There was tremendous stress in her marriage, and bad financial decisions had been made. But how was her anger contributing to her depression?

So I began to ask her, “If you weren’t so angry, if you could somehow put that anger aside for a moment, what else might you feel? And what thoughts might be tied to those feelings?”

She replied almost instantaneously, “I’d be very, very sad.”

“And what’s it like to feel sad?”

“I don’t like feeling sad. In fact, it makes me feel weak.”

“Oh, so staying angry means you’re holding onto control?”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I asked what might happen if she could connect with her sadness as well. How would that change the anger?

“Well, it softens it, maybe.”

“And what thoughts or beliefs does that sadness lead to?”

“Maybe I gave my whole life to something I shouldn’t have. Maybe I missed seeing something I didn’t want to see.”

Now, that could lead to shame, which we don’t want either. But hopefully you can hear that by asking, “What else might you feel?” and then, “What other thoughts or beliefs might come to you?” there is movement.

The skill of cognitive flexibility

Yapko calls that movement “cognitive flexibility.” I’d add that it’s flexibility of both thought and emotion.

It means recognizing that what you’re feeling or thinking can be a reaction, and that other thoughts and feelings could also be present. When you realize that, you’re much more likely to focus on what you want to do, how you want to cope with what has happened, and what kind of reality you want to create.

This isn’t about denying your feelings or forcing yourself to “think positive.” It’s about not automatically believing that one thought or one emotion is the entire truth.

You might begin by asking yourself:

• What am I feeling right now?
• What is that feeling leading me to believe?
• What else might I feel if I could set this first emotion aside for a moment?
• What other explanation could there be?
• What facts might I be missing?
• Do I need to make this decision right now?

Your feelings matter. Your thoughts matter. But depression can make both feel like undeniable facts.

The first mental mistake is believing everything depression is telling you.

The skill is learning to pause and ask: *What else might be true?*

By the way… 

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