ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) Is Basically Positive Thinking. If your partner leaves you, do not worry because you will find another one soon. Some therapists might believe that positive thinking will automatically lead to positive feelings. Leahy warns against the therapist becoming a cheerleader for positive thinking. Therefore, CBT 'is not of negative thoughts with positive ones; rather, it aims to help people shift their cognitive appraisals from ones that are unhealthy and maladaptive to ones that are evidence-based and adaptive'. These new appraisals developed through exploring clients' idiosyncratic meanings they attach to events, examining alternative viewpoints with which to view these events, and executing experiments to test validity of their thoughts and beliefs. Positive thinking should not confused with a positive outlook the former outlook relies on an unjustifiable optimism which banishes any disagreeable facts that may need to be faced, whereas the latter one based on assessing accurately the behavioural evidence to date.
