Thoughts and feelings, though interconnected, are distinct aspects of our mental experience. However, in our everyday language, we tend to confuse the two of them. For example, we say, "I feel like he doesn't like me", when what we really mean is, "I think he doesn't like me". Because we tend to confuse thoughts and feelings, it is essential to differentiate the two in therapy.
To begin with, feelings are usually one word, such as happy, sad, angry, mad, worried, embarrassed, anxious, or excited. Thoughts, on the other hand, generally come in the form of sentences or phrases.
In therapy, we often refer to the thoughts we have in specific situations as automatic thoughts. Our automatic thoughts happen very quickly and are just below a conscious level of awareness. Thoughts are based on what a situation means to us, or our interpretation of an event or a situation. For example, a stranger approaches you on the street and asks for directions. If your initial thought is This man wants to hurt me, you will also think He's dangerous; I need to get away. However, if your initial thought is He's just a tourist, you may also think, How can I help him? I want to be nice.
Automatic thoughts are words or images that go through our heads. Many of our automatic thoughts are about very ordinary things, such as I wonder what the weather will be like today? Or, as you leave work, Do I need to stop for milk? We don't tend to have a strong emotional reaction to these kinds of thoughts and they have little significance in therapy.
What we are more interested in, is thoughts that are connected to strong negative feelings as well as those that are judgments about ourselves, others, or the future. For example, a thought about oneself might be I am stupid, while a thought about others might be My partner is inconsiderate, and a thought about the future might be Nobody likes me. These thoughts are usually just below our awareness, but it is possible to identify them if we ask ourselves, What was I thinking?
Automatic thoughts are spontaneous and rapid; we get a lot of them, and they come and go so fast that we often don't even notice them. However, once we notice our thoughts, we can start examining them, and perhaps begin to change them. Once we change our thoughts, our feelin
gs and behaviours also change.
In summary, thoughts are about how we interpret the world and analyze the world, while feelings are about how we emotionally react to those interpretations and analyses.