Overview Of Worrying Worksheet Template Page 7
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12What? Me Worry!?!
The Vicious Cycle of Worry
Beliefs worrying
is dangerous
Beliefs worrying is
uncontrollable
Positive beliefs about
Initial ‘what if’ thought
worrying
_______________
&
Symptoms:
_______________
_______________
_______________
Unhelpful strategies
Unhelpful attention
Let’s recap and put all the information we now know about worry together. You can use this worry
‘flower’ to summarise some of the responses you have written on the previous pages.
Regardless of whether your worry is triggered by something external or internal, an initial ‘what if’
thought will pop into to your mind, and likely be accompanied by some uncomfortable physical and
emotional symptoms (e.g., tension, butterflies, anxious feelings, etc). So far this is all normal and happens
to everyone. How much time we spend stuck on more “what if” thoughts and how intense our symptoms
get, will be determined by the following things which can turn normal worry into more problematic and
distressing worry…
•
Your positive beliefs about worrying will mean that you respond to the initial “what if” thought
with more worry and negative thinking because you believe it is a helpful thing to do. So you give the
negative thoughts more time and attention, snowballing them into more worrisome thinking.
•
As such, your attention gets locked in on those worrisome thoughts. Your unhelpful attention is
either unaware that is caught in worry, or unable to shift to a more helpful focus, such as the present
task at hand, which just fuels your preoccupation with your worries.
•
Now, if you keep on worrying, your worries may start to focus more on worries-about-worrying and
how uncontrollable and harmful your worrying is. This is because you also hold some negative
beliefs about worrying being both dangerous and uncontrollable.
•
And because you think worrying is bad and you hate not being in control of it, you then engage in
unhelpful strategies to try to stop your worrying. But unfortunately by trying so hard to stop the
worrying, it actually backfires and makes you worry even more.
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Page 7
Module 2: Overview of Worrying
nterventions
• Psychotherapy • Research • Training
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