Negative Thoughts or Negative Self-Talk:

Negative thoughts or self-talk contributes to social anxiety disorder (SAD), depression, stress, and low self-esteem. Key to diminishing its effect is by understanding our thinking and resulting problems — and use strategies to change them. An effective treatment is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or cognitive therapy. Also see Cognitive Distortions and Mood-Congruent Self-Schema. Negative thoughts can show up as:

• Unrealistic attributions, reaching conclusions why something happened that aren’t true or accurate.
• Unrealistic expectations, assuming control not available in a situation, causing disappointment.
• Predicted outcomes when meeting someone new, leading to increased attraction if the prediction is positive, but in a limited/non-relationship if the prediction is negative.
• Internalized defectiveness schemas, harboring feelings of being “defective” or bad, unwanted or inferior in important ways or, if exposed, being unlovable to significant others.