Challenging Anticipatory Consequences

Think about the last few times you experienced stress. How often is the outcome as bad as your perceived it to be?

Chances are, the actual outcome is nowhere near as bad as you tell yourself it is going to be when you are experiencing the initial stress. This is where the benefit of recognizing anticipatory consequences comes in.

Let’s say for example your friend doesn’t answer your text for over a day. The initial narrative might be “I am mad because my friend didn’t answer my text and that is rude”. But further prompting would expose that really you don’t think an unanswered text is that rude - so that consequence i.e rude behavior towards you, not only isn’t that bad - but maybe even not true! So you take it further. Really what you are upset about is fearing that friend might be mad or not like you.

But then you realize if this friend is mad - they are somebody who is reasonable and that you can to them to resolve it.

So look at the transition here. It goes from the anticipatory consequence of an unanswered text being “that bad”. Then it turned into the text not being that bad, but your friend being mad being the big consequence. However, even that problem ultimately after reflection does not seem that bad. either. The idea here is we forget that in our minds we create a conclusive negative consequence rather then sit, unpack and challenge how bad or accurate these anticipatory consequences truly are.

If anxiety or anticipatory consequences is something that you relate to - therapy with Philadelphia therapist Noam Dinovitz can help!

Noam can be reached through the form below or by:

Phone: 484 424 7722

Email: Noam@Dinovitzcounseling.com