Give your ‘but’ a workout

In sessions when you present someone with a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit with their negative thoughts there is one small word you will hear with great frequency: ‘but’.

Therapist Inga, you tell me that you are not academic but what about this ‘A’ that you got on your latest assignment? That doesn’t sound like the grade of someone who is, I quote, ‘rubbish at studying’?
Inga: But you see, it’s only because I was able to borrow my friend’s lecture notes – he’s just got a really clear way of presenting stuff because he understands it – unlike me.

Our instinctive and irrational drive to defend our negative thoughts means that we all too swiftly find reasons and excuses to dismiss the information that doesn’t ...

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