Help for anxiety and depression: Changing our thoughts

Help for anxiety and depression: Changing our thoughts should probably read: Changing our relationship to our thoughts. I have plenty of experience using CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), a form of CBT, to see how they are very similar and yet different in their approaches to thoughts. Using CBT we try to find a more logical thought to counter a distorted or unhelpful thought. If you have the thought you are a loser we may ask you to look at the evidence that that thought is true and the evidence against it and ask what conclusion you can make (e.g. I have strength and weaknesses). So every time you have the thought you could remind yourself of that conclusion or again use the evidence technique to help you change your relationship to that thought. Using ACT with the same thought we might ask you a question like how often in your life have you had that thought…has it been helpful to pay attention to that thought? Likely you would be able to then distant yourself from that thought so that you are no longer buying into it.
I do think that paying attention to many of our thoughts in these manners may help reduce the struggle with anxiety and reduce the problems depression has been causing you. Needless to say we also have other techniques as well.