That's an interesting technique; it sounds rather zen-inspired. Did you invent it, or where did you come across it?
As I understand it, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy ("CBT") suggests arguing with your (sometimes negative) inner voice using all the rational-argumentation techniques at your disposal.
For example: "Everything Sucks" => "That would be an example of overgeneralization; if everything did suck, then like fish in water, we would have no word for it. The world is how it is, and there are positive aspects and negative ones. The features of the world that prompted my thinking 'Everything Sucks' may well be negative, but the world is big."
"I'm stupid and worthless" => "That's an example of emotional reasoning - believing something because I feel it, rather than because I have evidence, and possibly also fundamental attribution error. There are people, even relatively disinterested, professional people, who have described me as bright. Other people have described me as hard-working, which may be even more important to long-term success and capabilities than innate gifts. Fundamental attribution puts characteristics on people as if they were simple and unchanging from context to context and from one time to another. Actually, people are generally richly faceted, very situation-dependent and capable of growth."
And so on.
I didn't invent it, and it is in fact inspired by the mindfulness meditation that is part of certain kinds of Zen practice (caveat: I am not even a plausible approximation of a Zen scholar; I just take what suits me and leave the rest behind).
As I understand it, there are lots of schools of CBT out there; what they share in common is a focus on addressing the thoughts that underlie our emotional reactions to events. The argue-with-yourself approach you describe here seems consistent with that, though I'd be surprised if it were endorsed by all CBT schools.
My girlfriend suffers serious depression. She has sleep disorder, anorexia, chronic pain, problems to concentrate, low selfesteem, daily low mood, listlessness and is very indecisive. On the other side she considers herself very happy apart from the "depression periods" and we have a great time together. We already consulted a psychotherapist, but there is waiting time about one month. I buyed her fishoil capsules, because she eats no fish and there is mild evidence that it helps treating depression (I don't think this will affect her depression greatly, but fishoil seems like an overall good idea). We often go on walks to catch some sunlight and get her some exercise.
She says she never want's to take antidepressants because she fears to get dependent from them. I think she might change her mind if there are very good arguments in favour of them. She is quite rational in spite of not knowing the LW-stuff. Does anybody of you know if there is any information of the succes rate of medicamentous (and psycho therapeutic) treatment available?
I highly appreciate any advice.
Furthermore i want to call attention to the topic of depression. A huge share of the population suffers at least once in their lifetime under depression (~20% in Germany). Sadly it's often not taken serious and a big taboo to speak about. Many people see it as self-inflicted. My girlfriend's mother doesn't believe in depression as a disease (see diseased thinking). It's a paradigm of irrationality that hurts people.