Icebergs!

Icebergs – Deeply held beliefs that often lead to out of kilter emotional reactions eg believing that asking for help is a weakness … how can we reframe that?

Following icebergs you need to deal with how to minimize catastrophic thinking… learning how to calibrate the catastrophic realistically is crucial…

eg soldier unable to contact his wife via email may think ‘she’s left me!’ and this produces depression, paralysis and fatigue.

The Hot Seat: Fighting Castrophic Thoughts in Real Time

A task that requires immediate attention. There are 3 ways to challenge catastrophic thinking in real time:

1. Gathering evidence
2. Using optimism
3. Putting in perspective

These skills are not about replacing the negative thought with a positive one but they provide a stop-gap.

You need to ‘put things into perspective’.. ask yourself, what would be the:

• worst case
• best case
• likely case

Develop a plan for coping with that likely outcome.