We can colloquially define automatic thoughts as those that suddenly come to our heads without our being able to avoid it. It is fast, parallel, autonomous, requires little attention and little work memory load, they are like compiled programs, they cannot be avoided once started. These automatic thoughts can also be recurring. Often these automatic thoughts are related to pessimism.
Automatic thoughts often look like shorthand, made up of a few essential words or a brief visual image. A woman who feared heights imagined for half a second that the ground was tilting and she felt as if she were falling through the window.
This momentary imagination triggered a crisis, anxiety as if it had grown to a height of three storeys. Shorthand is often phrased in telegraph style: "just… sick… can't resist… cancer… bad." A word or short phrase works as a heading for a group of dreaded memories, fears, or self-reproaches. Sometimes automatic thinking is a brief reconstruction of a past event. A depressed woman remembered the stairs of a department store where her husband first announced his intention to leave her. The image of the staircase was closely linked to all the feelings associated with that loss.
One of the most effective techniques to be able to identify an automatic thought, is using the emotional intelligence technique is using writing as a form of self-knowledge. For example, it is possible to put these thoughts in writing in a notebook to be able to manifest those internal messages.
These automatic thoughts can break into the subject's mind at any particular moment. It is positive to give reason to these irrational ideas that try to find an immediate occupation that allows to divert attention from these negative thoughts. For example, going for a walk is an activity that reinforces mental hygiene, since it is also healthy to walk outdoors to nurture emotional well-being.
These automatic thoughts cause great inner wear and tear because your message is often accompanied by the formula " should have done it." In other words, it is like a mental echo that makes us feel conditioned by supposed mistakes of the past to have been able to act in a more constructive way. Far from being constructive thoughts, these types of ideas reduce our emotional salary to the rhythm of dissatisfaction.
