Automatic Thoughts and Schemata

Automatic Thoughts and Schemata
Two concepts of particular relevance to cognitive therapy are the concepts
of automatic thoughts and schemata. Automatic thoughts are thoughts that
appear to be going on all the time. These thoughts are quite brief—only the
essential words in a sentence seem to occur, as in a telegraphic style. Further,
they seem to be autonomous, in that the person made no effort to initiate
them, and they seem plausible or reasonable to the person (although they
may seem far-fetched to somebody else). Thus, as a depressed person is giving
a talk to a group of business colleagues, he or she will have a variety of
thoughts. There will be thoughts about the content of the material. There is also a second stream of thoughts occurring. In this second channel, the person
may experience such thoughts as: “This is a waste of time,” or “They
think I’m dumb.” These are automatic thoughts.

Beck has suggested that although automatic thoughts are occurring all
the time, the person is likely to overlook these thoughts when asked what he
or she is thinking. Thus, it is necessary to train the person to attend to these
automatic thoughts. Beck pointed out that when people are depressed,
these automatic thoughts are filled with negative thoughts of the self, the
world, and the future. Further, these automatic thoughts are quite distorted,
and finally, when these thoughts are carefully examined and modified to be
more in keeping with reality, the depression subsides.


The concept of schemata, or core beliefs, becomes critical in understanding
why some people are prone to having emotional difficulties and others
are not. The schema appears to be the root from which the automatic
thoughts derive. Beck suggests that people develop a propensity to think
crookedly as a result of early life experiences. He theorizes that in early life, an
individual forms concepts—realistic as well as unrealistic—from experiences.
Of particular importance are individuals’ attitudes toward themselves, their
environment, and their future. These deeply held core beliefs about oneself
are seen by Beck as critical in the causation of emotional disorders. According
to cognitive theory, the reason these early beliefs are so critical is that
once they are formed, the person has a tendency to distort or view subsequent
experiences to be consistent with these core beliefs. Thus, an individual
who, as a child, was subjected to severe, unprovoked punishment from a
disturbed parent may conclude “I am weak” or “I am inferior.” Once this
conclusion has been formulated, it would appear to be strongly reinforced
over years and years of experiences at the hands of the parent. Thus, when
this individual becomes an adult, he or she tends to interpret even normal
frustrations as more proof of the original belief: “See, I really am inferior.”
Examples of these negative schemata or core beliefs are “I am inferior,” “I
am unlovable,” and “I cannot do anything right.” People holding such core
beliefs about themselves would differ strongly in their views of a frustrating
experience from those people who hold a core belief such as “I am capable.”
Another major contribution of cognitive therapy is Beck’s cognitive specificity
hypothesis. Specifically, Beck has suggested that each of the emotional
disorders is characterized by its own patterns of thinking. In the case of depression,
the thought content is concerned with ideas of personal deficiency,
impossible environmental demands and obstacles, and nihilistic expectations.
For example, a depressed patient might interpret a frustrating
situation, such as a malfunctioning automobile, as evidence of his or her
own inadequacy: “If I were really competent, I would have anticipated this
problem and been able to avoid it.” Additionally, the depressed patient
might react to the malfunctioning automobile with “This is too much, I cannot
take it anymore.” To the depressed patient, this would simply be another
example of the utter hopelessness of life.