The internal dialogue: On the asymmetry between positive and

Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 10, No. 6, 1986, pp. 591-605

The Internal Dialogue: On the Asymmetry Between

Positive and Negative Coping Thoughts 1

Robert M. Schwartz 2

University of Pittsburgh and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic

The concept of the internal dialogue-- and specifically the fundamental polari-

ty between positive and negative thoughts-has historical antecedents from

Plato to William James. Recent cognitive-behavioral research suggests that

functional groups are characterized by approximately a 1.7 to 1 ratio oJ

positive to negative coping thoughts, whereas mildly dysfunctional groups

demonstrate equal frequencies of such thoughts. Furthermore, this research

reveals an asymmetry between positive and negative coping thoughts, whereby

negative thoughts have greater functional impact and are more likely to

change as a result of therapy. After selectively tracing relevant historical fac-

tors, this article reviews research supporting these asymmetrical relationships

and explores potential implications for increased specificity in cognitive-

behavioral therapies.

KEY WORDS: internal dialogue; positive and negative cognition; assymetry; cognitive balance;

cognitive-behavior therapy.

The

internal dialogue-a

long-standing object of popular, religious, and

philosophical interest-has only recently been subjected to systematic

psychological research. Consequently, we can now formulate with more preci-

sion the role of the internal dialogue in psychopathology and health, and

begin to refine the popularized notions of "positive thinking" that have had

widespread appeal since the late 19th century.

~The author thanks Philip Kendall for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper

and Gregory Garamoni for numerous discussions related to these issues.

2Address all correspondence to Robert M. Schwartz, Agoraphobia Program-Room 309A,

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic,

3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.

591

592 Schwartz

An interesting characterlstic of the internal dialogue that has been

discovered involves asymmetrical relationships between positive and negative

coping thoughts. Research that assesses both positive and negative cogni-

tions suggests that functional groups are characterized by a 1.7 to 1 ratio

of positive to negative self-statements

(positive dialogue),

whereas mildly

dysfunctional groups demonstrate a 1 to 1 ratio

(internal dialogue of con-

flict).

In addition, such studies consistently demonstrate that negative cogni-

tions, relative to positive, weigh more heavily in distinguishing functional

versus dysfunctional groups and are more likely to change as a result of

psychotherapy (Kendall & Hollon, 1981; Mavissakalian, Michelson, Green-

wald, Kornblith, & Greenwald, 1983; Safran, 1982; Schwartz & Gottman,

1976).

This article will briefly trace selected historical developments related to

the conception of thought as positive and negative self-statements, review

research supporting these recently discovered asymmetrical relationships, and

suggest potential implications of these asymmetries for the "specificity" (cf.

Miller & Berman, 1983) of cognitive-behavioral interventions.

SELECTIVE HISTORICAL REVIEW OF POSITIVE

AND NEGATIVE THOUGHT

Ryle (1949) observed, "Much of our ordinary thinking is conducted in

internal monologue or silent soliloquy, usually accompanied by an internal

cinematograph-show of visual imagery" (p. 27). This conception of cogni-

tion as self-talk (Ellis, 1962) or internal dialogue (Meichenbaum, 1977) can

first be traced to Plato. In Theaetetus, Socrates described thinking "as a

discourse that the mind carries on with itself .... When the mind is think-

ing, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them, and

saying yes or no" (Hamilton & Cairns, 1961, p. 895). Similarly, Watson, who

is typically seen as denying thought altogether, observed that "thought is

nothing but talking to ourselves" (Watson, 1925, p. 191). Although the posi-

tion that thought is "nothing but" self-talk is considered incorrect (cf. Bar-

nard, 1981), it is widely accepted that some, if not all, thinking is conducted

in words (Ryle, 1979). The heuristic and therapeutic value of this concep-

tualization is evidenced by the effectiveness of self-statement training as a

form of cognitive restructuring (Dush, Hirt, & Schroeder, 1983; Miller &

Berman, 1983).

In a chapter entitled the "Will" the

Principles of Psychology,

James

(1890/1950) provided a classic and quintessentially human illustration of an

internal dialogue of conflict (cf. Schwartz & Gottman, 1976; Heimberg,

Chiauzzi, Becket, & Madrazo-Peterson, 1983) that captures the inner strug-

gle between positive and negative thoughts:

Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue 593

We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room without a

fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against the ordeal. Probably

most persons have lain on certain mornings for an hour at a time unable to brace

themselves to the resolve. We think how late we shall be, how the duties of the day

will suffer; we say, "I must get up, this is ignominious," etc.; but still the warm couch

feels too delicious, the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones

itself again and again just as it seemed on the verge of bursting the resistance and

passing over into the decisive act. (p. 54)

How does one ever arise under such circumstances, James inquires?

A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs; we forget both the warmth and the cold;

we fall into some revery connected with the day's life, in the course of which the idea

flashes across us, "Hollo! I must lie here no longer"-an idea which at that lucky

instant awakens no contradictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently pro-

duces immediately its appropriate motor effects. (p. 54)

This engaging phenomenological description illustrates how self-verbalizations

can influence human action in both facilitory and inhibitory ways.

Despite the encouragement of these philosophical formulations, scien-

tific study of the internal dialogue encountered difficulty. Methodological

problems of introspectionism (Ericsson & Simon, 1979) led to the behavioral

retrenchment that commenced with Watson and culminated with Skinner.

Although the behavioral paradigm made important contributions to the

robust scientific method upon which current cognitive science is now building,

it led to a temporary hiatus in the exploration of the internal dialogue by

academic psychologists.

By ignoring the scientific study of clinical cognition, psychologists left

this area to popular, religious, and philosophical forms of inquiry. For ex-

ample, the notion that a person could exercise free will in the realm of cogni-

tion left an indelible mark on James's (1902/1961) own consciousness and

led him to a lifelong interest in what he called, in

Varieties of Religious Ex-

perience,

the "religion of healthy mindedness." Around the turn of the cen-

tury, the systematic cultivation of healthy-mindedness was espoused by

various religious programs, collectively referred to by James (1902/1961) as

the "mind cure movement." These included lesser known forms such as the

New Thoughters, the Don't Worry Movement, and the Gospel of Relaxa-

tion, as well as the more familiar and enduring Christian Scientists. The con-

cept guiding the mind cure movement was that "thoughts are things," such

that thinking negatively was as destructive as putting poisonous food into

the body. Positive thinking was encouraged as an antidote to the delibitating

effect of negativity.

These proto-cognitive behaviorists typically cast their approach in

theological terms, with the ultimate source of positive thoughts being the

Divine presence of God or some related spiritual force. The most popular

application of these ideas came, of course, with Norman Vincent Peale's

Power of Positive Thinking.

Peale himself was directly inspired by James's

594 Schwartz

writings, particularly a brief pamphlet called the "Energies of Men," in which

James laid down the basic tenets that are contained in most contemporary

self-help guides (Meyers, 1980). Tracing the history of the internal dialogue

through these popular expressions need not be a source of embarrassment

to its current scientific status. In the same way that the roots of natural science

can be traced to magic and religion (Dampier, 1971), aspects of the cognitive-

behavioral approach can be seen as secularized, technically sophisticated,

and empirically based manifestations that extend well beyond these pro-

totypical early movements.

Given the long-standing interest in positive and negative thoughts from

Plato through James, what does cognitive-behavioral research suggest regard-

ing the claim that our cognitions influence us in fundamental and measurable

ways?

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE

In order to place the study of clinical cognition on a secure scientific

foundation, Meichenbaum (1977) highlighted the need to develop a "cognitive

ethology." This can be defined as the study of the content, function, and

structure of the internal dialogue in various stress-related or clinically rele-

vant situations, such as taking an examination, delivering a speech, or cop-

ing with cancer. Given the diversity and inaccessibility of human thought,

this program might seem destined to fail. However, by focusing on cogni-

tions in narrowly defined stressful situations and by abstracting relevant

categories of thought, one makes this enterprise more feasible.

If people are faced with a situation such as refusing an unreasonable

request, the shared experience of social reality tends to limit the range of

articulated self-verbalizations-"What if the person gets angry? .... But this

is an unreasonable request," "I'll feel guilty later if I say no," and so on.

Although these thoughts can be classified along a number of dimensions (e.g.,

self vs. other, realistic vs. unrealistic, rational vs. irrational), they can be

categorized at the highest level of abstraction with respect to

their functional

role in achieving a specified goal.

To continue with the assertiveness example, Schwartz and Gottman

(1976) defined a positive coping thought as one that

facilitates

the goal

behavior of refusal (e.g., "I'll be sorry later if I give in and say yes"), and

a negative coping thought as one that

interferes

with the goal behavior (e.g.,

"I might get embarrassed if I say no"). In coping with a stressful medical

procedure, Kendall et al. (1979) identified positive thoughts, such as "This

procedure could save my life," and negative thoughts, such as "The catheter

might break and stick in my heart." Thus, the positive and negative dimen-

Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue

595

sion as used here relates to the functional role of the thought with respect

to a specific goal or desired outcome. In semantic differential studies, be-

tween 50 and 75% of the variance is accounted for by the evaluative (good

vs. bad) dimension (Averill, 1980). This suggests that even though the positive-

negative dimension appears restrictive, it represents a primary and fundamen-

tal dimension with respect to coping.

In fact, cognitive-behavioral study of the internal dialogue-.

conceptualized as an inner struggle between positive and negative self-

statements- can be viewed as a special case of the

dialectical

nature of human

thought. According to Rychlak (1968), the dialectical model of thinking holds

that reasoning proceeds through the "opposition of contradictories" (Rychlak,

1968, p. 268)-that the human capacity to conceive of opposing ideas pro-

vides the dynamic behind thinking itself. The internal dialogue, with its in-

herent conflict and tension, is thus an inevitable and basic aspect of the human

condition:

ASYMMETRIES IN THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE

Assessing coping thoughts along the positive-negative dimension has

yielded asymmetrical relationships that are of potential clinical interest. For

example, in Schwartz and Gottman's (1976) "task analysis" of assertive

behavior, high assertive subjects had significantly more positive than negative

thoughts, whereas low assertives did not differ in the reported frequency of

these thoughts. Specifically, high assertives demonstrated a positive dialogue

consisting of a 1.7 to 1 ratio of positive to negative thought, whereas low

assertives were characterized by a 1 to 1 ratio or an internal dialogue of con-

flict (see Table

I). 3

Hn our initial study assessing positive and negative coping cognitions (Schwartz & Gottman,

1976), we simply presented the means for positive and negative thoughts separately. The use

of ratio scores here was inspired by Hollandsworth et al. (1979), who, in their study of test

anxiety, observed that low anxious subjects reported about two facilitative statements for every

debilitative statement, whereas for high anxious subjects the ratio was about 1 to 1. The

ratios presented in Table I were calculated by dividing the larger mean self-statement score

by the smaller mean self-statement score for both functional and dysfunctional groups. For

example, the ratios for the high assertives (functionals) and low assertives (dysfunctionals) in

the Schwartz and Gottman (1976) study were derived as follows: Functionals = Mean Positive

Thoughts/Mean Negative Thoughts = 57.0/33.0 = 1.727, which yields (rounding to tenths)

a positive to negative ratio of 1.7 to 1; Dysfunctionals = Mean Negative Thoughts/Mean Positive

Thoughts = 51.0/48.0 = 1.06, yielding a positive to negative ratio of 1 to 1.1 (see Table I).

For theoretical reasons, in a forthcoming work on these cognitive asymmetries (see

Schwartz & Garamoni, 1986), we are now combining positive and negative cognitions by

calculating a proportion of positive to total thoughts.

596 Schwartz

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Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue 597

This pattern of differences in self-statements has been directly replicated

in the area of assertive refusal by Bruch (1981) and was generalized across

a broader range of assertiveness situations with psychiatric inpatients by

Heimberg et al. (1983). It has also been demonstrated to hold across a varie-

ty of clinical problems such as social anxiety (Glass, Merluzzi, Biever, & Lar-

son, 1982), test anxiety (Hollandsworth, Glazeski, Kirkland, Jones, & Van

Norman, 1979), and self-esteem (Vasta & Brockner, 1979). Furthermore, these

differences in self-statements cannot be attributed to an artifact of method

since they have been replicated using diverse methods of cognitive assess-

ment such as inventories (Schwartz & Gottman, 1976; Glass et al., 1982),

thought listing (Cacioppo, Glass, & Merluzzi, 1979), talking aloud (HoUands-

worth et al., 1979), and thought sampling (Vasta & Brockner, 1979). Thus,

across problem areas and methods of cognitive assessment, the functional

groups were characterized by approximately a 1.7 to 1 ratio of positive to

negative thoughts and the dysfunctionals by a 1 to 1 ratio (see Table 1). 4

Another interesting asymmetical relationship emerged in Schwartz and

Gottman's (1976) task analysis study: Although high and low assertives dif-

fered in the frequency of both positive and negative self-statements, there

was a stronger relationship on the negative dimension. This asymmetry has

been consistently supported by subsequent studies of nonassertiveness. Bruch

(1981), in a replication of the task analysis of assertive behavior, found a

significant inverse relationship between cognitive complexity and negative

self-statements, whereascomplexity and positive self-statements were not

related. Rhyne, Sullivan, and Claiborn (1983) extended the task analysis to

male psychiatric inpatients, finding that negative self-statements added

significantly to a multiple regression equation predicting actual assertive

behavior, whereas positive self-statements failed to increase the predictive

power. Klass (1981) examined the relationship of frequency and impact of two

types of positive (criticism of other and self-directed concerns) and negative (harm

and responsibility) self-statements to a measure of guilt over assertion. For

both frequency and impact, the negative self-statements (relative to positive)

were more strongly related to guilt.

This asymmetrical pattern has also been observed in research on social

anxiety, test anxiety, and coping with stressful medical procedures. Using

a thought-listing method of cognitive assessment, Cacioppo et al. (1979) had

male subjects write their thoughts as they anticipated meeting an unfamiliar

woman. Although positive and neutral thoughts were unrelated to self-

evaluation, the greater the number of negative thoughts emitted, the lower

the self-evaluation for both judge-scored (r = -.32) and subject-scored (r

= - .34) thoughts. In the area of test anxiety, Galassi, Frierson, and Sharer

4For a more extensive review of this literature, see Schwartz and Garamoni (1986).

598 Schwartz

(1981) developed a Checklist of Positive and Negative Thoughts to assess

cognitive differences between high and low test-anxious subjects. They found

that negative self-statements correlated + .44 with test anxiety, whereas the

correlation for positive self-statements was only - .28. In a study of coping

with cardiac catheterization, Kendall et al. (1979) found that only negative

thoughts differentiated the effective from the ineffective coper; positive

thoughts apparently did not relate to how well the person managed this

stressful event.

Psychotherapy outcome studies that assessed cognitive change also sup-

port this asymmetry. The pattern of change that appears in the few available

studies is that negative thoughts tend to decrease without a corresponding

increase in positive thoughts. For example, Derry and Stone (1979) found

that cognitive self-statement therapy for nonassertives resulted in a larger

decrease in negative self-statements than attributional or behavioral

treatments. There were no changes, however, in positive self-statements or

other cognitive variables. Malkiewich and Merluzzi (1980) reported that both

rational restructuring and systematic desensitization reduced negative

thoughts in socially anxious patients; however, no differences were obtain-

ed for positive thoughts. In a recent study of agoraphobia, Mavissakalian

et al. (1983) added self-statement and paradoxical intention treatment com-

ponents to an in vivo exposure approach. Both treatments resulted in a decrease

in negative or fearful thoughts, with no corresponding increase in positive

coping thoughts.

This asymmetry between positive and negative thoughts is further sup-

ported by diverse findings from areas outside cognitive-behavioral research.

For example, May and Johnson (1973) found that negative thoughts such

as "multilation" increased heart rate, whereas positive thoughts such as

"peace" or "calm" did not decrease it. Vinokur and Selzer (1975) reported

that negative life events were related to depression, anxiety, tension, aggres-

sion, paranoia, and suicidal proclivity, whereas positive events were unrelated

to these disorders- a finding typically supported by life events research (cf.

Johnson & Sarason, 1979).

In the context of the psychology of choice, Tversky and Kahneman

(1981) reviewed a number of studies supporting a phenomenon they call "loss

aversion," according to which the response to losses is more extreme than

the response to objectively equivalent gains. Experimental subjects, for ex-

ample, would not risk betting $1 in a fair coin toss unless the odds were 3

to 1. That is, the aversiveness of losing $1 was apparently greater than the

pleasantness of winning an equal amount, such that the subjects would bet

only when the prospect of gain was increased to three times the potential

loss. Extrapolating to coping with stress, the asymmetry between positive

and negative thoughts supports the notion that-all things being equal-

Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue

599

negative thoughts interfere with coping more than positive thoughts facilitate

it.

In sum, it appears that negative events and cognitions are more salient

and make a greater impact than positive ones-that negative thoughts and

feelings, relative to positive, may be more central to adaptation. Perhaps

psychology's focus on illness rather than health, or the well-known difficulties

of defining health in ways other than the absence of illness, can be better

understood in terms of this. Indeed, in the broadest sense, this re-

search lends support to the view that life's goal is more accurately

conceptualized as freedom from suffering than as pursuit of happiness. As

the Epicureans advised, "Seek not to be happy, but rather to escape unhap-

piness. ''5

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Thus, a growing body of empirical research supports the popular con-

tention that the internal dialogue bears a relationship to psychological health

and disorder. These early intuitions were correct as far as they went, but

the contemporary research outlined above permits a more precise understand-

ing of the role of positive and negative coping thoughts in psychopathology

and psychotherapy. Although somewhat tentative, the observation that

functional groups were characterized by approximately a 1.7 to 1 ratio of

positive to negative thoughts suggests that balancing one's cognition accord-

ing to certain proportions may have adaptive significance. Such a state of

mind is on the whole more positive than negative, but not entirely free of

some negative thinking. That some mixture of both positive and negative

thoughts characterizes functional individuals is consistent with Rychlak's

(1968) dialectical position noted earlier. If the presence of opposing ideas

provides the dynamic force behind thinking, then even optimal states of mind

will not be free of some negative considerations. Thus, "positive thinking"-if

construed as the complete absence of negative thoughts- would violate the

dialectical nature of thinking and therefore be less adaptive than more

balanced states of mind.

At the same time, the finding that mildly dysfunctional groups were

characterized by a 1 to 1 ratio of positive to negative thoughts indicates that

5Schopenhauer, the 19th-century philosopher, anticipated this asymmetry and made it central

to his view of the nature of existence. In an essay entitled "On the Suffering of the World"

(1981), he graphically illustrated the fundamental and pervasive role of this asymmetry in

life: "This is also consistent with the fact that as a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable,

pain much more painful than we expected. A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs

pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings

of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten." (p. 42)

600 Schwartz

an equal balance of positive and negative cognitions-an internal dialogue

of conflict- has maladaptive clinical significance. Certainly, more negative

ratios, as might be found in severely anxious or depressed individuals, would

also be pathological. If future research confirms that the 1.7 to 1 ratio

associated with functional groups represents some preferred balance, then

cognitive-behavioral therapies that monitor and modify coping thoughts

might strive to approximate this ratio as the therapeutic goal of cognitive

restructuring.

The finding that negative cognitions (relative to positive) are more

strongly related to psychopathology and therapy outcomes has implications

for whether therapeutic interventions should focus more heavily on the

positive or negative dimension of thinking. The existence of this functional

asymmetry has led Kendall and Hollon (1981) to aptly observe that the "power

of non-negative thinking" may be a more accurate formulation than the

familiar, popularized phrase. According to this formulation, the cultivation

of positive thinking is something of a fallacy, or at least of less relative im-

portance than the disciplined avoidance of negative thoughts.

Cognitive Specificity

Asymmetry has potentially important implications for the "cognitive

specificity" (cf. Miller & Berman, 1983) of therapeutic interventions in

cognitive-behavioral and other forms of psychotherapy. Specifically interven-

tions that focus on insight into negative and unproductive thinking may be

more critical than those that build positive coping repertoires through self-

instructional training (cf. Emmelkamp & Mersch, 1982; Vasta & Brockner,

1979). If so, this would support the goal-although not necessarily the

means-of Rational-Emotive Therapy, in which the primary focus is on

eliminating negative or irrational thoughts. Ellis (1977) speculated about this

very issue: "The specific hypothesis of RET that positive thinking works,

but that it remains a less elegant and less effective form of therapy than help-

ing people to scientifically attack and invalidate their negative thinking (Ellis,

1962; Ellis & Harper, 1975), does not seem to have led to any validating studies

yet" (p. 67). Such validating studies are beginning to emerge and, as noted

above, tend to support this view.

However, component analysis studies of cognitive restructuring that

assess the differential therapeutic impact of positive and negative components

of the overall treatment have been inconclusive. Thorpe, Amatu, Blakey,

and Burns (1976) found that in treating public speaking anxiety, groups in

which instructional training of positive, rational ideas was absent actually

performed better on four outcome measures. This is consistent with studies

Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue 601

that found that self-instructional training failed to add to behavioral treat-

ment and in some cases interfered (Emmelkamp, Kuipers, & Eggeraat, 1978;

Girodo & Roehl, 1978; Ladouceur, 1983). Carmody (1978) found essential-

ly no difference between rational-emotive therapy, self-instructional train-

ing, and behavioral assertion training in the treatment of nonassertiveness,

except that RET was superior on an in vivo test of transfer of training.

In contrast to these studies, Glogower, Fremouw, and McCroskey (1978)

found a coping rehearsal group to be superior to an insight into negative

self-statement group in the treatment of social anxiety. Similarly, Barnard,

Kratochwill, and Keefauver (1983) found that RET alone did not result in

reduction of anxiety and hair pulling in a single-subject study of a 17-year-

old girl. Introduction of self-instructional training led to rapid elimination

of the symptoms, supporting the need for an additional focus on building

positive self-statements for this individual.

Process of Cognitive Change

The inconclusiveness of these component analysis studies suggests that,

while useful, they may be too global to add substantially to the issue of

cognitive specificity. In discussing the process of cognitive change in therapy,

Glass and Merluzzi (1981) raised such question as these: Do positive coping

self-statements replace negative ones? Do the negative ones disappear? How

are clients' new internal dialogues integrated into their belief systems? These

authors suggested that even if therapy focuses on changing self-statements

and this results in cognitive and behavioral change, the reasons for the changes

may be at a different level than the mere substitution of positive for negative

thoughts. These comments raise the issues of the

process of cognitive change

over time

and the distinction between

cognitive content

and

cognitive struc-

ture,

and suggest that more detailed studies that systematically assess positive

and negative self-statements over the course of treatment will be necessary.

Although the data reviewed earlier support the fact that negative

thoughts carry more weight than positive ones, it does not directly follow

that eliminating negative thoughts is a more effective strategy than develop-

ing positive thinking. The actual state of affairs will likely be more complex.

Consider, for example, the possibility that early in treatment positive cop-

ing thoughts may be an important part of the internal dialogue in terms of

developing and supporting new behaviors, but that over time they result in

the formation of new cognitive structures (e.g., self-efficacy, scripts,

preconscious cognitions), such that the positive self-statements no longer ap-

pear in the content of the surface dialogue. A study by Kendall and Finch

(1978) of impulsive children provides suggestive support for this formula-

602 Schwartz

tion. They found that impulsive children increased thier on-task verbal

behavior (positive self-statements) as a result of therapy when measured im-

mediately at posttreatment. At follow-up, the total amount of on-task verbal

behavior decreased, but the task performance remained significantly improved

relative to the pretherapy assessment.

These considerations and data are consistent with the role of inner

speech in self-regulation outlined by Luria (1961) and Vygotsky (1962). In

their view, self-statements are originally made aloud by children (before age

5) but later internalized and transformed into differently encoded forms that

are more condensed and telegraphic. If the therapy patient learns new

behaviors analogously to a child, the process of cognitive-behavioral change

may require a transitional period of positive coping self-verbalization until

a sense of mastery is experienced and the performance is incorporated into

deeper, preconscious, and perhaps nonverbal self-structures (cf. Meichen-

baum, 1977). At this point, there is no longer a need for positive self-talk

in the internal dialogue because the behavior is automated and no longer

problematical. Indeed, the changes in states of mind during therapy might

be described as a progression from a negative or conflicted internal dialogue

to a positive coping dialogue, leading finally to a state of "inner

speechlessness" or what Langer (1978) has called "mindlessness."

CONCLUSION

Recent cognitive-behavioral and related research suggests that functional

groups are characterized by a 1.7 to 1 ratio of positive to negative thoughts,

whereas mildly dysfunctional groups approximate a 1 to 1 ratio. This raises

the possibility that this particular

cognitive balance

has functional value

and may represent an optimal therapeutic outcome. Furthermore, both

positive and negative thoughts have been shown to influence clinical dysfunc-

tions, but there is a stronger relationship on the negative dimension. In terms

of treatment, it may be more critical to eliminate these negative thoughts

than to establish positive ones, at least as the

final end point

of treatment.

However, research on the process of therapeutic change over time that assesses

both positive and negative cognitions may lead to the finding that a period

of positive coping thought in the internal dialogue is necessary to facilitate

short-term change until these newly acquired patterns of thinking, feeling,

and acting are integrated into new self-structures. Perhaps this will repre-

sent a synthesis of the popular and intuitive focus on positive thinking and

the emerging scientific evidence that emphasizes the relative salience of

negative thoughts.

Asymmetry in the Internal Dialogue 603

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