By Negative thoughts are the root of many of our problems. These types of cognitions, by themselves, can lead to a mood disorder with really significant limitations. Thus, it is easy to understand the importance of detecting when they are starting to be dangerous, and in this article we present you with a tool for this.
Do you often have negative thoughts? The kind that slightly dampen your hopes and dampen your spirits? It happens to all of us. Inside us there is a horror movie scriptwriter who, from time to time, takes over and creates the most distressing mental plots. However, we almost always manage to reformulate them and apply a more realistic, healthier approach to them.
However, in recent years we are seeing a worrying reality. More and more people are turning to debilitating and adverse reasoning . These are automatic, ruminating and exhausting thought patterns that can lay the foundation for more than one mental health problem.
Far from letting them pass and not giving them relevance, there are those who allow them space and offer them veracity. The moment we give validity to an irrational and catastrophic idea, we lose control of our life and persistent discomfort emerges. From a clinical point of view, knowing what a patient’s thoughts are like allows us to evaluate the risk of developing depression .
Numerous instruments have been designed for this purpose, but among them all there is one highly valuable tool that we will analyze below.
Cognitions and automatic thoughts are a major risk to our mental health. They are the seeds that grow from anxiety disorders to depression.
Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-R (ATQ-R): Objective and characteristics
Our thoughts can be like beacons that provide a solution to every problem or burden that demoralizes us. They often irritate us, awaken the pain of the past and make us see the future with great insecurity. It is true that it is impossible to always think in a positive and hopeful way, but the most decisive thing is to have control over them and know how to rationalize them.
The moment we are dominated by inaccurate, fatalistic and irrational perceptions, the mind changes . As striking as it may seem, this is what more and more people have experienced in recent years as a result of the health crisis, social changes and economic problems. We must also keep in mind a significant fact.
The University of Regina has found in a study that depressive symptoms are significantly correlated with negative automatic thoughts. Therefore, one way to detect whether a person is at risk of suffering from a mood disorder is by evaluating these cognitions. Tests can be very useful in these cases.
The validity we give to our irrational thoughts is a risk factor for the development of depression.
A useful tool in psychological therapy
The ATQ-R Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire is an instrument developed by psychologists and researchers Steven D. Hollon and Phillip C. Kendall, which seeks to detect cognitions associated with depression. In other words, it is not just about assessing whether or not a person has irrational reasoning of negative valence.
The aim is to find out whether the patient believes in these distorted images and reasonings that he produces. It should also be noted that this test is based on psychotherapist Aaron Beck ‘s theory on the triad of depression. In other words, we all run the risk of falling into this psychological disorder if three factors are present:
- Having a negative view of ourselves and interpreting what happens to us in an adverse way.
- Maintain exhausting and inflexible thought patterns.
- Highlight thinking errors, such as catastrophism , black-or-white dichotomous thinking, etc.
In these three cases, the questionnaire developed by Hollon and Kendall is very useful and valid. One study highlights the importance of addressing this internal thinking and dialogue that people show in clinical settings.
What is this questionnaire about?
The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ-R) consists of 30 self-statements that the person must evaluate from 0 to 4 according to their identification with them . The questions are statements such as “nobody understands me”, “I wish I was far away from here” or “I have disappointed everyone”.
The series of thoughts that the person must rate are also organized into four categories, from which the final score will be derived. Thanks to this, it will be possible to identify whether the person is at risk or already exhibits a depressive disorder.
- Negative self-concept: debilitating image that a person has of themselves.
- Helplessness : belief that any effort or initiative undertaken to change one’s reality is useless.
- Poor adaptation: inability to cope with changes and everyday problems.
- Self-reproach: high self-criticism.
The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ-R) has been updated over the years and has emerged as a valid instrument for identifying depressive cognitions.
What is the validity and reliability of this instrument?
The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ-R) was updated by Netemeyer et al . in 2002 and is considered a valid and effective instrument in the scientific literature . It is easy to administer and provides useful indicators for assessing cognitions associated with depression.
It is also interesting to note that it is a frequent resource both in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and in treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy . Not only is it used to detect the presence of a possible depressive disorder, but it also allows us to assess the change throughout the psychological treatment itself.
The purpose of this test is not to assess how many distorted and negative thoughts a person produces. By administering it, what we are looking for is to know if the person gives credence to all those adverse mental productions that he or she produces. That is the real problem, and the one we have to address.
Not everything we think is valid, useful and rational . Let us analyze the veracity of everything we tell ourselves, because that will guarantee a good part of our psychological well-being.