Negative automatic thoughts

An automatic thought is one that just 'pops' into our mind. We don't have to think about them, they just appear as if from nowhere. Sometimes they're just there in the background, like the scenery in a play.

We're especially interested in automatic thoughts that are in some way critical or hurtful.

These are called 'negative automatic thoughts' (or NATS for short).

Try this - if you have a strong emotional reaction to something, ask yourself: 'What was I thinking just before I began to feel this way?'

Catching NATS can be tricky, quite often we're so used to them that we don't notice them. When we do notice them, we've got the option of thinking something else.