Recognize, Challenge & Change

"Cognitive restructuring is a technique that specifically focuses on cognition by teaching individuals to recognize, challenge, and change stress-inducing thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs in order to minimize unhealthy negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression, and to minimize unhealthy thinking styles, such as pessimism while promoting health-enhancing mental states, including sense of control and optimism. Cognitive restructuring has become a core technique, along with the relaxation response, in mind–body medicine for reducing the effects of stress on a variety of medical conditions (Jacobs, 2001, p. 94)."

"In cognitive restructuring, teaching patients to alter negative, pessimistic thinking styles not only directly influences emotional states, including anxiety and depression, but in fact, improves...functions associated with depression, particularly appetite, sleep, and sexual activity (Jacobs, 2001, p. 95)."