In a video clip, Daniel G. Amen, M.D., shares what he calls “One of my favorite strategies to combat anxiousness” and refers to “killing” what he calls “ANTS,” his acronym for “Automatic Negative Thoughts that steal your happiness.”
Amen advises the listener that, “Whenever you feel anxious, sad, or mad, write down what you’re thinking to get it out of your head.” Seemingly borrowing from Byron Katie, he says you should “Then ask yourself: is it true, is it absolutely true, how do I feel when I think that thought, how would I feel without it, and finally, turn the thought into its opposite. Remember: you are not defined by every thought that crosses your mind.”
This approach treats thoughts as the primary problem and puts the burden on the individual to override them. That’s unhelpful, and it’s not even science.
From a Relational Neuroscience view, anxious activation is not driven by thoughts alone. It reflects a whole-body state shaped by prior experience, current conditions, and the level of safety available in the moment.
When the body is organized around threat, thoughts follow that state. They are not random intrusions that can be flipped into their opposite without consequence. Asking someone in that condition to challenge or replace thoughts can increase internal conflict. One part of the system is trying to signal danger while another part is being instructed to dismiss it. That mismatch can intensify activation rather than settle it.
Writing things down can help if it brings structure and slows things enough for awareness. But the effect depends on whether the person has enough stability to stay present while doing it. If not, it can pull attention deeper into the threat pattern.
Sustained change usually comes from shifting the conditions that organize the distressed state. That includes predictable environments, people who respond in a consistent and non-intrusive way, and enough room in the body to notice sensations without being pushed past tolerance. When those conditions are present, thoughts tend to become less rigid on their own. There is less need to force them into something else.
Framing thoughts as something to “kill” sets up an adversarial stance inside the system. Integration depends on reducing that internal opposition and allowing signals to be processed and updated in context. The focus shifts from correcting thoughts to building conditions where the body no longer has to generate them in the same way.
Science matters.
