Of course it exists, I described it in my comment. Look at this quote from wikipedia and compare it to my example of preparing for your parents to die:

> Unlike the general focus of creative visualization of inducing an imaginary positive psychological and physiologic response, negative visualization focuses on training the practitioner on the negative outcomes of realistic life scenarios to desensitize or create psychological fitness in preparation for real-life losses

Something existing and some people thinking it is a good idea doesn't mean it is. I'm not saying I'm right either, I'm sharing what I do and what I think. And what I think is that negative visualization is ridiculous. Live your life, bad things will happen anyway, why do you want to be sad in advance just to maybe be a little bit less sad later? I can't take this idea seriously, it's like someone who doesn't want to love for fear of getting a broken heart.

As someone just now learning I have been negative visualizing since childhood, I’ll tell you it’s not a choice exactly. The thoughts just come to you (someone is going to die, I’m going to die, etc.)… sometimes I’m successful at knocking the thought out of my head quickly. Other times I dwell for a few minutes, having a mini-grieving session thinking what I would do in the situation. It passes and I go back to present life where you don’t think about these things at all. I don’t know if it’s something innate that I got used to and I subconsciously need to do for some reason (and perhaps others do not)… not sure how much more resilient I’ll be if/when anything terrible happens, so agree not sure if best use of time