# Are you missing half the Process? Butler CBT Book



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Hi

I have had a few questions from folks about the Butler book and it seems some of yaz are getting a bit stuck. The main sticking point seems to be the core thing of how the method works, and a lot of people are not getting beyond the 'thoughts' stage.

If you are working on the book, its important to see the difference between the COGNTIVE and BEHAVIOURAL parts of it. Both are needed. One without the other will not do anything for you, and in addition there are vital supporting elements that are needed also.

I hope this will clear it up: CBT is not about coming up with a new positive thought to replace the old negative thought. Just doing that will feel mechanical, and will not produce any deep change. Heres something I sent to a guy who PM'd me recently (hope you dont mind me reproducing it....slightly modified)

*Butler Book 'Flow'*

[hr:fp32ucwa][/hr:fp32ucwa]*ID thoughts and use mood diary > ID rules and assumptions > ID Core beliefs > Learn Attentional Skills > ID and drop safety behaviours > Be a scientist and Propose alternative 'hypotheses' to your core beliefs (start small) > Use the sheets to test the hypotheses > Review and repeat as needed and for multiple beliefs, rules and assumptions.*
[hr:fp32ucwa][/hr:fp32ucwa]
1) Working with mood diary to identify the most common autopmatic thoughts associated with SA.

2) Begin to suggest alternatives to these thoughts. Some may work immediately, others are hypotheses for later

3) Keep doing the diaries and look to see which ones come up more and more. The thoughts that come up the most are pointing to your rules, assumptions and core beliefs.

4) Use the vertical arrow technique to distil your most common auto thought into a belief or rule (belief is deepest)

5) Begin practising Attentional / Awareness Training for a couple of weeks so that you can use it as a skill when needed

6) Identify all your safety behaviours so that you can begin practicing dropping them

7) Try to notice when you are 'going inside your head' and then apply the attentional training to bring it back outside yourself

8 ) Become aware of your thoughts BEFORE and AFTER an event. Understand the influence of your 'going inside your head' and what you REMEMBER.

9) Once your attentional training skills are strong and you know your safety behaviours, you are ready for the next step. Put together your anxiety ladder.

10) Using the cognitive work, you should have identified the core beliefs, rules and assumptions that are at the root of your anxious and depressed thoughts, as identified in real life by your diaries. Eg you may have "I am unlovable". Remember what i said about a hypotheses earlier? The hypothesis is, to start with, something simple like "some people may find me ok to be around". You need to TEST this new belief, because right now you will not belive it. What could you do to test this belief? How do you expect people to show you that this belief is true? What will they do? You can also try the same thing looking for evidence against a negative belief. If its "I am unlovable", what behaviours do you ex[ect to see from people to confirm this? What behaviour might disconfirm this? You might even try both approaches in different experiments. You can do it how you like - but you must keep an attitude of CURIOSITY. Just for a moment, suspend your total conviction in those beliefs and look for real evidence, ONCE YOU HAVE THE ATTENTIONAL TRAINING DOWN and SAFETY BEHAVIOURS REMOVED.

11) Using the experiment sheets and the changing core beiefs sheet use this information to construct your first experiment. You need to go looking for evidence that CONFIRMS YOUR NEW HEALTHIER HYPOTHESIS or DENIES YOUR OLD ONE. You MUST ID these on the sheet because of SA's ability to disqualify things after the event - DO THE FORMS.

12) Go and do the easiest experiment you can on your anxiety ladder, testing for the above. It can be whatever rules, belief or assumption you want. YOU MAY WELL HAVE HNDREDS OF THESE - that is why it takes a LONG TIME and lots of work. *The intellectual mind can learn as quickly as you read these words. But the emotional mind, being a throwback to early evolution, does not learn in this way. It takes a lot of time and constant repetition. You WILL experience setbacks and relapses. Its how the emotional mind works.*

SA is not a switch - its more like the internet. You dont just punch out one light and the whole thing goes down - you have to find every machine hooked up to the system and steadily eliminate them. This is NEVER quick - it is an ongoing process. Months to years - not weeks.

13) Keep working through the anxiety ladder. Keep using the mood diaries as well to come up with further auto thoughts, rules and beliefs. As you move up the ladder you will feel the momentum of the cofidence of each step push you on to the next. _You must look at yourself as a scientist. _The world has taught you that the earth is the centre of the universe and you belive this with all your heart. You have to use CBT to be a good scientist - to use the too, a telescope if you will - to test your assumotions and theroies of yourself. Much like any new pursuit of learning, this is not accomplished overnight. It takes time, dedication and the ability to recognise that failure always takes you one step closer to success.

Its not about doing this once. Its about doing it over and over again, sometimes repeating the same experiment multiple times, and challenging many many hypotheses, to begin to see change.


----------



## katelyn (Jul 11, 2006)

*Re: Using the Butler Book? Gettin stuck??*

This is exceptionally useful. I have printed this and I will stick it on my wall. Having CBT explained in simple steps really motivates me to work on it. Thanks Ross.


----------



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

*Re: Using the Butler Book? Gettin stuck??*

Whee :banana

It is also useful to modify the mood diaries to help them fit you. If I were using them I would change mine to feature the following columns:

1) Situation (PLUS was I using attentional methods / mindfulness and dropping safety behaviours? Remember that these will *drastically affect what you actually remember*)
2) Moods and Schema Modes
3) Body sensations, Fleeting Images, Automatic Thoughts associated with these and other thoughts
4) Belief in two most troubling thoughts in chart in %
5) *Validation and empathy*: To give myself a chance to acknowledge that THIS IS HOW I FEEL. To give myself space to not punish myself for having emotions, to not nag or criticise. To recognise WHY I feel that e.g because of my schemas, because of past experience that I have identified. This is the place to ntice any self-insults, put downs, "if only I wasnt such a a loser" and so on. A simple "I cant help that i feel bad around girls / boys - I just do" may be enough for you.
5) Evidence that supports the bad thoughts
6) Evidence that may not support the bad thoughts. Also include here any further empathy and understanding that you feel you need to give yourself.
7) An alternative hypothesis / less critical way of looking at the event (based on the evidence and all the knowledge, personal, psychological, spiritual that you have. USE THE BOOK FULLY TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS - DONT WING IT!! Put crap in, get crap out ... this is a machine!  ) _If the Butler Book doesnt explain it well enough for you, then try one of the other good titles on CBT such as Mind Over Mood or Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy._
8 ) Rate the belief in the new hypothesis (for comparison to your beliefs in the 'bad' column) in %. DONT WORRY IF ITS LOW - this is only one step in the process! *This is where people screw up - they think if they get to this column and they dont instantly feel better - they must have failed. NO. They have just taken one little chip at it. Keep hammering!*

Once youre done the most interesting columns to you are going to be the stuff at 3 and at 7. Just mentally take note of how much you believe your hypotheses. Keep doing the mood diairies as ofetn as you can, and see if similar ideas come up, eg she will laugh at me, it will be terrible, I stink (and so on). Some thoughts may not be so clear - try to pick up common 'threads' and see what they suggest.

The mood diaries will give a constant flow of material to feed forward into the machine. Take the most common and nasty thoughts and run it through the vertical arrow technique. When you get as far as you can, go back through your "hypotheses" and see if there are any that resonate with the rule, assumption or belief you have (make sure you know the difference). This helps you come up with the MORE POSITIVELY ADAPTIVE (not just positive - the aim is to take the sting out at first and keep working at it) hypothesis you will test in the later EXPERIMENTS stage.

The mood diary is your raw material for the BEHAVIOURAL stage. Learn how to do these well and it will make the second part MUCH more effective. Its a system, each part has to be done right, and that where the book comes in handy!! Read it!! :yes

Lastly, each new hypothesis should be JUST A SLIGHT REVISION of the negative belief. Something that is only a small move away from the bad one. The idea here is to keep runnin this through the machine, gradually moving up the scale in increments. To go from "I am unovable" to "I am the macdaddy" in one aint gonna cut it ... "I am unlovable" to "Some people dont mind being near me" is a better step, especially if those beliefs are DEEP. Make a change that feels REALISTIC. Now you can see why CBT is not a quickie job - it takes time to gently coerce though beliefs to change, and to bed down.

You are dealing with the primitive part of the brain here. Almost treat it like teaching a dog to walk a tightrope ... if he cant do "stay" yet you are gonna have trouble making him look good in front of a circus tent ... start small and gradual :yes

Ross


----------



## meggiehamilton (Nov 12, 2003)

I found this to be very helpful also since I have the book. Please leave it up. I plan on printing it out over the weekend. :hug


----------



## CopadoMexicano (Aug 21, 2004)

any books on selective mutism?


----------



## StimulateYourBrain (Nov 20, 2011)

do you know any similar model to the vertical arrow technique?


----------

