Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

Chronic worriers will recognise the terrifying power of What If thoughts. What if I fail the test? What if I get the sack? And if that happens, what if I can never get another job?

What Ifs are not problems that actually face us in the here and now. They are hypothetical. Putting it more bluntly, they are imaginary. Possible of course, but exactly how likely are these What Ifs? Scaring ourselves with terrible potential problems doesn't help us to deal with any real problems we have. What If thinking makes us anxious and this can freeze our ability to deal with the real problems that face us now. Scaring ourselves with thoughts that we might lose our job puts us into a tizz, whereas if this was a likely outcome, we should be making a plan to find a new job.

And have you noticed that What Ifs are always horrible? What if I get soaked on the way to work? rather than What if I get a pay rise today? or What if I see a brilliant film? or What if I achieve all my goals for today? Do you think that happy and positive What Ifs are tempting fate, whereas negative What Ifs somehow help you to solve problems?

So what to do? When a nasty  What If thought pops into your mind, challenge it. Exactly what is it that you are predicting? What if this were true? Why would it matter? And if you come up with a reason, why would that matter? What exactly are you predicting?

Bad things happen to all of us. It is worth remembering this because we cannot expect things to go right all the time and we need to learn to handle difficult situations. Bad things do happen, and the more we accept this, the more we know this is normal, the less we fear bad things happening and the more confident we can be in dealing with our problems.

Active problem solving is a useful skill for anyone who tends to ruminate, worry or suffers chronic anxiety.

Problem-solving is traditionally divided into five main component skills, which can be taught and practised in therapy sessions,

1. Problem Orientation.  Problems are normal. Everyone has them.  We can learn to look at problems in a systematic and practical way.
2. What is the problem? Why is this a problem? What are the facts that make this a problem?
   
3. What would be better? Given the situation, what would we like to happen instead of having this problem? Is this a realistic goal?
   
4. What action can we take?  There are often a wide range of things we can do - some are off the wall. But the more possibilities we can come up with, the more likely one at least will work.
   
5. Which are the best plans?  Some solutions give immediate relief but don't solve the problem. Some solutions cause more problems. Some might work for you but cause problems for others. Which is the best and most realistic plan of action.
   
6. Trying it out. The goal is to find something that solves your problem, so when you give your action plan a test, you might find it needs adapting. Or it might need replacing with Plan B. And you might find you need persistence. Some problems need more work than others.

And taking this approach will build your confidence hugely. So, when you start to feel anxious in the future, you will start to work on solving your real problems, rather than distressing yourself (and, being blunt again, distracting yourself) with millions of possible disaster scenarios!

Once we are on the What if train, who knows what we will end up believing. This kind of thinking is called awfulising or catastrophising. It feeds on itself as you imagine worse and worse possible outcomes, creating a vicious cycle of worry. Prolonged worry causes anxiety and anxiety causes worry, and so on, in a perpetual circle. Worriers often do this and it is unhelpful. How does it happen and what can we do to stop it?

Our internal self-talk is continual, automatic, and occurs partially outside of awareness. Consequently, we don't pay much attention to it but when we are faced with stressful situations, the self-talk turns its spotlight onto the stressful event and becomes obsessively preoccupied with it. It’s well-established that when people feel anxious the mind is drawn to potential sources of danger automatically, like iron to a magnet. People tend to exhibit three main unhelpful thinking styles as a result of anxiety.

You focus on signs of potential danger and ignore evidence of safety - "selective attentional bias" or "tunnel vision" .
You tend to interpret ambiguous situations or uncertain outcomes in the most threatening way - "selective interpretation bias" .
You tend to remember previous incidents that provide evidence of threat or vulnerability and forget about events in the past that suggest the opposite - "selective recall bias."

When people are afraid and anxious they naturally tend to over-estimate the likelihood and severity of a feared outcome and under-estimate their ability to cope or opportunities to be rescued from harm. In short, when you’re anxious, your judgement tends to be biased toward the perception of danger, 

What would be the ideal state of mind for thinking through your problems? Not when you are in the spiral of worry, is my recommendation. Make a note of the worrying thoughts, and postpone thinking about them until you are feeling normal again. And cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy is the best way to learn how to think in more helpful ways.