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Thoughts Or Feelings

Thoughts Or Feelings is a quiz-style exercise aimed at helping clients differentiate between cognitions and emotions, which can be used within a cognitive behavioral therapy framework.

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Psychology Tools resource: Thoughts Or Feelings

Thoughts Or Feelings

People experience many emotions, including sadness, anxiety, anger, and joy. Most emotions can be described using single words. Thoughts, on the other hand, are more like statements that go through our mind. We can experience our thoughts as things we say to ourselves (‘inner dialogue’) or mental images (pictures in our minds). 

The Thoughts or Feelings exercise helps you understand the difference between thoughts and emotions. It involves sorting statements into either thoughts or feelings, which will help you develop and practice this skill. 

Overview

Differentiating between thoughts and feelings (emotions and bodily sensations) is a vital skill in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Thoughts are often opinions or assumptions that can change and be reinterpreted, while feelings typically arise from how individuals perceive something. By altering their thought processes, people can modify their feelings. Many clients initially struggle to distinguish between the two and may be confused by statements like "I feel stupid," which mix an emotion with a thought. The Thoughts Or Feelings quiz is a simple exercise designed to help clients practice differentiating between their thoughts and feelings.

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