I have not read the book so I can't comment on that but I have done a good deal of cognitive behavioural therapy. Mostly I was taught to consider the optimistic explanation and assess how realistic my negative thoughts were.
The main exercise we used was to write down my thoughts, feelings, physiology and actions in response to a situation. Then we did it again for a more positive imagining of how the same situation could have played out. It's useful to see how each aspect effects the others and identifying how things could be changed helps a lot when the same situation arises again.
For sure it wouldn't be helpful to be wildly over optimistic, it must be very stressful to intentionally delude yourself. But the error bars on most of these judgements are so wide I don't see anything wrong with erring on the optimistic side.
Of course another skill is learning to avoid unhelpful judgements altogether. But that's a different topic and I won't pretend I have much insight there.
The main exercise we used was to write down my thoughts, feelings, physiology and actions in response to a situation. Then we did it again for a more positive imagining of how the same situation could have played out. It's useful to see how each aspect effects the others and identifying how things could be changed helps a lot when the same situation arises again.
For sure it wouldn't be helpful to be wildly over optimistic, it must be very stressful to intentionally delude yourself. But the error bars on most of these judgements are so wide I don't see anything wrong with erring on the optimistic side.
Of course another skill is learning to avoid unhelpful judgements altogether. But that's a different topic and I won't pretend I have much insight there.