Inference Chaining: Following the Fear to Its End

Anxiety often begins with a prediction. “What if I lose my job?” “What if I cannot pay my bills?” “What if everything falls apart?” The event has not happened, but the person can imagine it so clearly that the body responds as though it were happening now. Soon one question produces another. The mind runs ahead, looking for every dragon that might come over the hill.

I call one way of working with this inference chaining. The process is simple: take a frightening prediction seriously enough to follow it, one likely step at a time. If the feared event happened, what would happen next? And after that? What could you actually do? The point is not to promise that nothing bad will happen. It is to keep imagination from supplying only the worst possible ending.

Worry often has a great deal to do with uncertainty. In cognitive behavioral work, it can help to distinguish a problem that permits action from one that is, for now, only a hypothetical possibility (Dugas & Ladouceur, 2000). Catastrophic thinking can magnify the likely consequences of a threat and the apparent inability to cope with it (Cotterell, n.d.). Inference chaining uses the person’s own predictive thinking to test both ideas: How likely is this next step, and what would I do if it occurred?

Consider a person who says, “I’m terrified that I will lose my job.” A coach might be tempted to respond, “You probably won’t.” That may be true, but it leaves the important question unanswered. The person is not only afraid of losing a job; they may also believe that losing it would be unbearable. So the coach asks the person to make the prediction real for a few minutes and follow it through.

Individual: I’m terrified that I will lose my job.

Coach: What has happened at work that makes you think that?

Individual: My supervisor questioned a report I wrote. I stumbled through my answer. I keep thinking she has lost confidence in me.

Coach: That sounds uncomfortable. Do you know she has decided to fire you, or are you predicting what her questions mean?

Individual: I’m predicting it. But I can picture the meeting.

Coach: Then let’s use that picture. Suppose the meeting happens and you lose your job. Make it real for a moment. What would likely happen next?

Individual: I would panic. I would probably go home and tell my husband. I’d be embarrassed.

Coach: Would panic and embarrassment be the end of what you could do?

Individual: No. I’d have to figure out how we would pay for things.

Coach: What would you look at first?

Individual: Our savings, the bills coming due, and whether I was owed any pay. I would have to find out what benefits were available.

Coach: And what might you do the next day?

Individual: Update my résumé. Call a couple of people. Start applying for work. Maybe look for temporary work too.

Coach: What is the frightening inference after that?

Individual: What if nobody hires me? What if I lose the house?

Coach: Those are two more predictions. Is “nobody hires me” the only possible outcome? Let’s look at the range, not just the far end of it.

Individual: I could find another job quickly. It could take months. I might have to take a job I like less or earn less for a while.

Coach: If it took months, what decisions would be available before losing the house became the next event?

Individual: We could reduce expenses. I could talk with my husband about what we can cover. I could contact creditors, ask about payment arrangements, and look for other income. I wouldn’t enjoy any of it.

Coach: Of course. “I would hate it” makes sense. Is it the same as “I couldn’t handle it”?

Individual: No. I guess it isn’t.

Coach: Follow the chain as far as it honestly goes. If you lost the job and the search was difficult, what would you most likely do?

Individual: I’d be upset. I’d probably need help. But I’d keep making decisions, one after another. I guess I’d handle it. What else could I do?

That last statement is not a guarantee of a good outcome. It is a more complete description of the person. In the first version of the future, the individual loses a job and seems to disappear from the story. Bills arrive; disaster follows. In the fuller version, the person experiences discomfort and acts. They talk with someone, gather information, make adjustments, ask for help, and take the next available step.

The coach should not force a comforting conclusion. Job loss can bring real financial hardship. Some people have little savings, few openings nearby, or obligations that make a search especially difficult. If those conditions apply, the chain must include them. “You will handle it” should mean that the person can identify possible actions and supports, not that every outcome will be easy or fully under their control. Sometimes handling it means grieving, seeking assistance, or changing plans. Discomfort may ease with time for some people, but it should not be promised away.

The simple bell curve can help when a person repeatedly jumps to an extreme. At one end is an unusually favorable outcome; at the other is an unusually painful one. Between them are several ordinary possibilities. This is a way to widen the person’s view, not a statistical calculation. We cannot assign reliable probabilities to a job loss from a brief conversation. We can ask what evidence supports each prediction and what options exist at each point. Work on rational emotive behavior therapy also distinguishes the difficulty of an event from beliefs that it would be utterly awful or impossible to bear (Ziegler & Leslie, 2003).

Inference chaining begins before the feared event is real. First, recognize the sentence “What if?” as a prediction. Then ask whether there is a present problem to address. In our example, the supervisor’s questions are real. The imagined firing is not yet real. The person may be able to clarify the report, prepare for a meeting, or ask for feedback today. Once those useful actions are identified, there is little benefit in rehearsing dismissal all evening.

If the mind insists on going further, follow it deliberately. “If that happened, what would likely come next? What would I do? Who could help? What might happen after that?” Keep going until the story includes the individual’s own response. Repeating the same catastrophic question without considering action merely restarts the cycle. The useful chain has an end: a realistic recognition of uncertainty, discomfort, and the capacity to respond.

I think of pain avoidant thinking as the mind’s attempt to prevent every possible hurt by imagining it in advance. It can become exhausting because imagination can always invent another dragon. Inference chaining invites a different use of imagination. Let the dragon come over the hill in the story. Then ask what you would actually do. You may not like the answer at first, and you may need help. But an imagined future is not a problem you can solve by suffering through it repeatedly today. The most reasonable conclusion is often a modest one: If it happens, I will face what is there and take the next step.

References

Cotterell, N. (n.d.). Catastrophic thinking: A transdiagnostic process across psychiatric disorders. Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. https://beckinstitute.org/blog/catastrophic-thinking-a-transdiagnostic-process-across-psychiatric-disorders/

Dugas, M. J., & Ladouceur, R. (2000). Treatment of GAD: Targeting intolerance of uncertainty in two types of worry. Behavior Modification, 24(5), 635–657. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445500245002

Ziegler, D. J., & Leslie, Y. M. (2003). A test of the ABC model underlying rational emotive behavior therapy. Psychological Reports, 92(1), 235–240. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2003.92.1.235

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