Columns

This week's column primarily pertains to mood and does not so much discuss severe symptoms of mental illness.

This week's piece involves looking at thoughts. Focusing on one's thoughts can worsen symptoms for some people with schizophrenia. On the other hand, if able to handle it, making deliberate changes to the thought patterns can bring a lot of progress. The reader should use his or her best judgment concerning this week's piece.

The methods described in this week's piece should not be construed as a suggestion to go off medication. This method potentially goes well as an adjunct to meds.

Thoughts are the precursor to emotions. If a thought is generated by the ego, in which case it says something relating to the perception of self, an emotion will soon follow--it could be painful or pleasurable depending on the content of the thought and how the mind processes it.  

To say this more succinctly; if you have a good or bad emotion, a thought comes first. If you can learn to change the thoughts, it follows that the emotions will change. This is important for people suffering from depression.  

If you have an inexplicable bad mood, sometimes but not always, it could be fixed through identifying a negative thought, or multiple negative thoughts, that have triggered the emotional pain. Sometimes a few negative thoughts will occur, and the bad mood may persist long enough afterward that the initial thoughts have already gone away. Yet it can still help to try to backtrack and figure out what the initial thoughts were.  

Most people, whether or not they have a mental health issue, are unaware of thoughts being merely thoughts. Instead, people instantly accept their thoughts as being reality. In order to gain conscious influence over thoughts, we must first get a little distance from them. Admittedly, this is easier said than done. 

Ironically, many people are unaware even of what they are thinking. Instead, they are living in what they perceive to be reality. In fact, most people live in a distorted version of the world in which their reality is defined by their assumptions and thoughts. This is true for anyone and not just someone with mental illness.  

Academic study or reading a magazine article could be two examples of having thoughts that do not trigger emotions. However, thoughts that say something about an event, pertaining to "you" in some way, thoughts about who you are, or thoughts that say something is supposedly good or bad, will tend to produce emotions. A nonjudgmental observation tends not to bring forth much emotion.  

In the past five years or more, antipsychotic meds have been marketed to treat depression. Antipsychotics seem to lower the volume of thoughts. If your depression is caused by excessive negative thoughts (and this doesn't mean that you are a negative person--it is simply the content of the thinking) then depression would be less if you have fewer thoughts or thoughts at a lower volume.  

If medication slows the thoughts to the extent that they are less overwhelming, it might become possible to recognize some of the thoughts that bring difficult emotions. If you can then intentionally think a different thought, one that nullifies the painful thought, you could correct part of the emotion.  

One possible problem with the method I have outlined is that you may not know which thoughts ought be replaced, and what thoughts to create and use as replacement thoughts. If you produce an unskillful thought as your substitute, it could cause things to get worse. This is where a therapist can be useful. If you can pinpoint those thoughts that you believe are causing you problems, and share them out loud with your therapist, they may have some idea of a better thought to use as a replacement.  

(This sort of cognitive therapy should never be attempted while driving or operating machinery. Secondly, if you are crossing the street and a big truck is speeding toward you, the problem isn't related to thoughts--you have to get out of the way of the truck.) 

If you can correct several negative or perhaps delusional thoughts and substitute better thoughts, it could cause the content of the thinking to make a big shift and this causes the perception of reality to change for the better.  

You do not have to fix every thought in your mind for things to get better. Just by replacing a few of your negative or delusional thoughts, it causes the subconscious to do more of the same on your behalf. Thus, your mind could shift from a negative, painful, or delusional space to content that feels better and that might cause you to brighten up.  

A pen and a pad of paper can come in handy for this. Writing one's thoughts in a journal can have the effect of getting them out of your head and onto paper, and this by itself can bring relief.  

The basic lesson that thoughts are not "reality" is important. Most people mistake their thoughts for being reality, when in fact, thoughts are an attempt to describe reality, and thoughts are subject to error--frequently.  

If all of this seems foreign or impossible to you, don't worry--it is advanced stuff. Getting to know your mind is a gradual and time-consuming process--people who have spent decades meditating could tell you that. Yet, for many people, not everyone, it is worth the time and effort.