Comments on: The Power of Negative Thinking

By: Little Brother

Little Brother — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:40:04 +0000

Is it in the genes or is it more a case of “Dago see, dago do”? Sorry, couldn’t resist.

By: Mary Hardie

Mary Hardie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:01:09 +0000

“Worst case scenario” thinking — me, too! I knew it — we ARE related! No Sicilian in my background, tho — Brit/Irish mostly.

By: Janet

Janet — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:12:04 +0000

It might be true in some cases that “…the technique of trying to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts only makes people feel worse,” but there is an overwhelming amount of social science research that most people can learn to be more optimistic and positive and that doing so confers tremendous mental and physical health benefits. I suspect that the effectiveness has to do with the amount of the gap between what people believe and the new positive thought to which they are introduced. The difference has to be believable. So if you are thinking, “I’m in a terrible mood and I will always be depressed and miserable,” the newer thought needs to be something like, “I’m in a terrible mood right now but I’ve been in a good mood in the past and I’ll have good moments again.” There is just too much evidence in favor of Positive Psychology (Seligman, Diener, Lyubomirsky, Emmons, etc.) to discount it completely. That being said, meditation also has a strong track record of effectiveness and works well, too. The key is to find the right mix for any particular individual…I guess this is a book length post…sorry about that…this topic is a strong interest of mine.

By: Beverly

Beverly — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:33:16 +0000

Funny – my German husband has that same gene. I, on the other hand, counteract his negativity and pessimism with my positive thinking. Must be the French/English gene there. After all – wine and a good batch of fish and chips can always make things better!