Positive cognitive restructuring refers to active attempts to change one's view of a stressful situation in order to see it in a more positive light. If I tell myself that my Parkinson's disease means that my life is over and only suffering awaits me, then I am going to be miserable. If I on the other hand deny that PD places any limitations on my activities then I will likely make others miserable (because they will worry about me) and I will unwisely put off medical treatment for myself until I come to the conclusion that PD does in fact place real limits on some of my activities. Thus, I need to avoid the 2 extremes when it comes to thinking about PD's effects:
- PD does not mean that my life is over
- and PD does not mean that my life can continue on as it always had-without limitations.
In practice it works something like this: Whenever I start to tell myself such absurdities like ‘my life is over…I can never live a full life again etc’ I can replace these thought with others such as ‘While PD certainly has imposed restrictions on some of my activities, I can still do most of the things I love to do and I can even offer to others the benefits of my experience of learning to cope with a serious disease.” The idea is to look at your situation realistically and that include strengths as well as limitations.
When you practice this cognitive restructuring technique it often works better to write down your positive responses to those catastrophic forms of thinking that get you down. Writing out the positive interpretation of your situation somehow makes it more memorable.
Source:
Skinner, E. A., Edge, K., Altman, J., & Sherwood, H. (2003). Searching for the structure of coping: A review and critique of category systems for classifying ways of coping. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 216–269.
