today i'm going to be talking about the three defining characteristics of worry
and two types of worry hi everyone today what i want to talk about is a definition of worry
understanding uh what worry is the three defining characteristics of worry and two different types
of worry now before we get into that just a couple of disclosures to go over i am a registered
psychologist in british columbia canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is
not intended as a substitute or replacement for advice from a doctor or mental health professional
now with those two things out of the way let's start talking about worry now this is going to be
one the first of a longer series of videos about worry and about worry management but the way i
like to start by talking about worry management is by talking about a definition of worry
really understanding of what it is what we're what it is that we are talking about
when we talk about worry so have you ever thought about what worry actually is
that's one of the first questions i ask my clients when we get into worry management
is i ask them to provide me with a definition of worry and usually there's a bit of a a pause and
a look of confusion because i think most people know what worry feels like and everybody knows
kind of how it feels to be worried but rarely do people ever stop to think about what
worry actually is and that's what i want to talk about today so that people can
have a clear sense and a clear idea of what i'm talking about when i talk about worry
so the first thing about worry is that worry is a thought process it is something that happens
in your head it is something that you are thinking now worry tends not to be just a single thought it
tends to be a collection of thoughts now that can be the same thought looped over and over and over
and over again or it can be one thought leading to another leading to another leading to another
until you get this scenario building now for example i wake up one morning i've got a really
bad headache and i think to myself what if this is a brain tumor what if there's something wrong
now typically with worry the next thought isn't well i wonder what i'm going to have for breakfast
the next thought is either going to be looping over oh my goodness what if this is a tumor what
if this is cancer what if this is something bad or spiraling into a negative scenario about what
might happen if i have to get treatment and what would happen to my family those types of things
so the first sort of defining feature of worry is that it is a collection of thoughts it is
a thought process and a collection of multiple thoughts the second defining characteristic of
worry is that worry tends to be future oriented what that means is that people don't worry
about things from the past typically they worry about stuff that's going to happen in the future
now sometimes people will stop me and they'll say hold on a second
i worry about things from my past but usually when people say that they're worrying about
stuff from their past what they're actually talking about is they're worrying about how
the things from the past are going to affect them in the future so essentially how the implications
of events that have happened in the past and what impact they're going to have on a person's future
so for example if i'm worrying about having been fired from a job three years ago
it's not so much that i'm worrying about having been fired from the job three years ago
it's that i'm worrying about how i'm going to be able to explain
that i was fired from that job three years ago in the upcoming job interview so
now another small but sort of obvious component of this is that worry tends to be about future
negative events people don't worry about positive things happening right so rarely do people ever
worry oh what if uh what if this job goes really well or what if this relationship turns out great
what if my friends are really impressed with me people don't worry about those things
people usually only worry about negative things happening so that's the second defining feature
of worry worry is about future negative events now the third defining feature of worry is that
worry is associated and accompanied by anxiety anxiety is the emotional result
of the worry process now this is an important concept an important point because a lot of times
people will use the terms worry and anxiety interchangeably i'm worried and anxious and
that's probably because people usually experience worry and anxiety at the same time
but worry and anxiety aren't the same thing worry is a thought process and anxiety is the
emotion that results from that thought process so you can't be worrying without being anxious
but you can be anxious without worrying so i hope that makes sense that worry is the thought process
anxiety is the emotional result that comes from that thought process
so that's the definition of worry that i work by that's the definition of worry that i use when
i'm working with my clients on worry management worry is this collection of thoughts or doubts
about future negative events that are accompanied by anxiety so with that definition of worry out of
the way i want to talk about two types of worry now the first type of worry is what we call a
type one worry now a type one worry is a worry about a current actual
real problem a problem that's happening now a problem that i am dealing with in this moment
so for example i get my credit card bill in the mail and the credit card bill is for 300
but i only have 20 in my bank account and so i start to worry how is it that i'm going to be
able to pay this credit card bill so that worry about being able to pay the credit card bill
that's an example of a type one worry it's a worry about a problem that's actually occurring now the
other type of worries are called type two worries now type two worries are worries about future or
potential problems problems that haven't happened yet problems that may never happen so for example
i get my credit card bill in the mail and the credit card bill is for three hundred dollars i
have three hundred twenty dollars in my bank account so i can pay that credit card bill
but i start thinking to myself well that was a close one
what if next month i'm not able to pay my credit card bill
and what if that has a negative effect on my credit rating and what if that means i'm not going
to be able to get a car loan which means i'm not going to be able to get a good job because i can
only get a job that i can commute to by walking or taking transit and so i'm not going to be able to
sort of have a very successful career and no one will want to be with me and because i don't have
a good job and because i'm not able to afford a house because i won't be able to get a mortgage
and then i'll get depressed because no one wants to be with me and i'll lose my job and i'll
become homeless and i'm living under a bridge none of that stuff has actually happened
but i'm worrying about it happening and that's that sort of chaining and that spiraling of
thoughts that i talk about when i talked about earlier in terms of the definition of worry
so type one worries worries about actual current real problems type two worries
are worries about future or potential problems so you may be wondering okay so what
we've got this definition of worrying these two types of worries what do i do with this
how does this help well the key to understanding type 1 and type 2 worries isn't so much in terms
of being able to define the worries but when we talk about worry management tools we're going
to use slightly different tools depending on whether or not the worry is a type one worry
or the worry is a type two worry and so that's why it's important early on to get into the habit of
being able to recognize your worries think about your worries and define the worries as either
is this a type one or is it a type two now sometimes worries can start out as type one
and as part of that spiraling they go into becoming type two worries we call those mixed
worries so there's a component of it that's a type 1 and a component of it that's a type 2.
so for now the idea is to just spend some time thinking about your worry
and so this is what i encourage clients to do is to use this information by just trying to be more
aware and more mindful of your worries and when you catch yourself worrying to even just try and
think about is this a type 1 worry is this a type 2 worry what that can do is it can help
you disengage from the worry even for a moment and for you to start thinking a bit more analytically
and a bit more critically about the worry rather than getting caught up in the worry
experience you're now kind of observing it and thinking about it differently even just
by simply being able to say this is a type 1 worry or this is a type 2 worry so i hope that
has been helpful this is like i said earlier at the beginning of the video this is just the start
of the worry management series that i'm going to be working on uh next video we'll start talking
about a model for understanding how worry works and we'll talk about the importance
of worry awareness training so if you're interested in seeing some of the other videos
hit that subscribe button or that notification bell and you'll be
alerted and notified when the next videos come out so i hope you found this helpful and
thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one