Emotional processing and psychological therapy

Main page

Twelve steps to unhappiness



Roger Baker, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at Dorset HealthCare NHS Trust and
Neil Eskelin, the author of Yes Yes Living in a No No World. 
Published in the Sunday Times, November 2003

 

 

1

Ruminate: go over something upsetting; keep picking at yourself; rehearse arguments you have had, again & again.

U

 

 

 

 

 

2

Consider yourself a failure and keep reminding yourself that you always will be

N

 

 

 

 

3

Feed your hypochondria.  Monitor your bodily sensations constantly

H

 

 

 

4

Be a black and white perfectionist.  Minimise the positive and emphasise the negative in your unachievable quest for perfection

A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

Don't be holistic.  Look purely for physical reasons for any vague sensations of unwellness.  Blame any lack of progress with them on your doctor.

P

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

Lose your perspective on things and keep it lost: don't put first things first

P

 

 

 

 

 

7

Worry hard about something about which you can do nothing

I

 

 

8

Be right.  Be always right.  Be the only one who is always right and be rigid in your rightness

N

 

 

 

9

Don't trust or believe people or accept them at anything but their worst and weakest.  Be suspicious

E

 

 

10

Always compare yourself unfavourable to others

S

 

11

Take personally everything that happens to you

S

12

Don't give yourself wholeheartedly to anyone or anything

 

 

Dorset RDSU
Cornelia House  Poole Hospital NHS Trust  Longfleet Road  Poole  Dorset  BH15 2JB
Email dawn.stevens@poole.nhs.uk

© Dorset RDSU 2003