Handling the Hot Thoughts: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Writing

Although I am a professional writer and educator, writing does not always come easy for me. When I am facing a bad case of writer’s block, I rely on a psychotherapy technique I learned from a therapist: cognitive behavioral therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy developed by Dr. Aaron Beck in the 1960’s (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995). This therapy treats stress, depression, and anxiety by helping a person to identify and challenge their negative thoughts (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995). With practice, CBT can help a person to automatically identify negative thinking and turn thoughts from negative to positive.

Note: This blog provides just a summary of CBT, but you can find more information on the topic from Greenberger and Padesky’s book Mind Over Mood (1995). Before I jump into using CBT for writing anxiety, please know I am not trained in any kind of therapy or mental health care. These are just tips I have found to be helpful when I’m battling my own writing anxieties.

Step 1: Identify your situation and mood (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995)

The first step in using CBT for writing is to identify the situation and how you are feeling (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995). For example: Last week I was struggling to write a work assignment that asked for my personal opinion. In this example, the situation was a work assignment, and I felt nervous and insecure about providing my personal opinion. Because of these feelings, I found myself procrastinating on the assignment.

Other examples of situation and mood may include:

• You’re writing a major assessment for a course and you have no idea where to start. You pored over research, but you are putting off writing because you feel overwhelmed.

• You’re almost done with an annotated bibliography. The annotations and entries are done, but now you are stuck on the introduction. You’re feeling anxious about finishing this assignment because it is worth such a large percentage of your course grade.

Step 2: Identify your automatic thoughts and the hot thought (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995)

As you are identifying your situation and mood, where do you find your thoughts going? For my work assignment, my automatic thoughts included: “I will have to turn this assignment in late. My coworkers will be upset with me. Everyone will think I am terrible at my job.” Yikes! My thoughts went to a pretty extreme place. In my automatic thoughts, “Everyone will think I am terrible at my job” is definitely the hottest or scariest thought.  

Using the same situations and moods as above, here are some examples of automatic and hot thoughts:

• “I have no idea how to start this paper, because I am not good at writing. Hot thought: Whatever I turn in will be terrible.”

• “I have no idea what to write for this introduction. What if I finish this assignment and I get a terrible grade? Hot thought: If I get a terrible grade, my overall course grade will drop.”

Step 3: Identify evidence that does not support the hot thought, and instead, develop an alternative thought (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995)

I could have let my automatic thoughts continue to spiral, but I was able to stop and counter my negative thinking by looking for evidence to support my hot thought. Did I have any proof that my coworkers thought I was terrible? My coworkers had always been very supportive of my work. They had given me praise and encouragement on many projects. There was no evidence to support my hot thought. I had never turned in an assignment late before, and I knew I could still make the deadline because I had performed this kind of task in the past! My alternative thought or my positive, rational idea was, “I might have to ask for an extension, but I have to try first.”

Here are some examples of looking for evidence that does not support hot thoughts and alternative thoughts:

• I have never turned in a terrible paper before. While I may have done poorly on some writing assignments in the past, I was able to revise my writing and learn from the experience. Alternative Thought: I am confident in all the research I have done. I can freewrite my first draft and then get help from the Writing Center.

• So far I have not received a bad grade in this class. In fact, my instructor has been happy with my writing. Alternative thought: I may be stuck now, but I will begin by outlining my introduction. If I am still struggling with writer’s block, I will reach out to my instructor for feedback.

Ultimately, CBT is about addressing the negative thoughts that hold us back, and turning them into positive thoughts that move us forward. By working through this process, we have to slow down and rationalize our worst fears. More often than not, these fears are unfounded. With time and practice, applying CBT to your writing anxieties may happen automatically. 

Reference

Greenberger, D., & Padesky, C. A. (1995). Mind over mood. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. 

Tasha Sookochoff is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Along with earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Stout and Depaul University, Tasha has written documentation for the U.S. House of Representatives that increases government transparency, blogged for DePaul University, copy-edited the Journal of Second Language Writing, tutored immigrants and refugees at literacy centers, and taught academic writing to college students.

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