The Thinking Cure

Is it possible to think our way out of distress, anxiety and problems?

Here's a story: For Anna, a retired attorney living in Philadelphia, life began to unravel in 2005 when her husband of 30 years announced he was leaving her for another woman. She'd never expected her marriage to end, and while trying to deal with the fact that it had, she found herself feeling tired all the time and thinking: "It's all my fault," "I messed up everything," "I'm worthless." The facts didn't require any of those conclusions, but Anna couldn't escape them. She tried antidepressants, but they made her even more tired.

Searching for help, Anna eventually found a counselor who introduced her to another kind of remedy, called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It's a form of psychotherapy where patients are taught to approach their emotional problems using good critical-thinking skills. People learn to identify self-destructive thought patterns — sometimes called "cognitive distortions" in CBT lingo (see the sidebar "Common Cognitive Distortions") — and replace...