The 3C’s plus my adaptation of using the 3 Pillars of Positive Psychology
I came across the 3C’s in a Psychology Today article and thought it was a brilliant way to abbreviate, what is called in CBT a thought log. It stands for catch it, check it, and change it. The purpose of a thought log is to change the way you think about an event which ultimately changes the way you feel. First you catch your negative automatic thought, then you check the automatic thought for accuracy, and lastly you change your automatic thought to reflect something more accurate, ideally to a thought that you can change into something productive. In my practice, I find that while many people can learn to catch their automatic thoughts, they have a lot of difficulty in the check it phase. For example, many people at one point in their life will get left out of a conversation or social event. They may think to themselves “They clearly do not like me anymore. I must have done something embarrassing or wrong. Everyone must be talking about what I did. I am going to loose all my friends.”. They may take this as evidence as a much larger problem about them. This is where I like to use the 3 pillars of Positive Psychology, which are global versus specific, permanent versus temporary, and external versus internal. Using the example above, the person makes the problem global or what is popularly called catastrophizing by making it about their entire personality. They also make it permanent by saying “They do not like me anymore.” And “I am going to lose all of my friends.”. Lastly they internalize it by thinking it is their fault. The automatic thought can feel so convincing, they may get stuck in it, perhaps replaying recent events over and over again. If we make the automatic thought specific like “They did not ask me to join this time.” We do not discount the other times they have been included and do not rule out the possibility that they may be invited next time. This previous statement also makes the thought temporary. Lastly, if we say “I am hurt that they did not ask me to join. I actually do not know why they did not invite me. There could be other reasons why they did not ask me and this one event does not determine the future of all of my friendships.”. This last example allows for other reasonable possibilities, that are in truth, very possible and helps a person to avoid degrading their self-esteem. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/202102/the-three-c-method-healthy-justifications