by Lyz Hart, LPCC
What are Cognitive Distortions?
Our brains are powerful and complex tools that help us navigate our lives in so many important ways. The brain keeps us alert to danger, it reminds us to breathe and to eat, it helps process the world around us, and form relationships with others through communication and language. Our brains do so many wonderful things for us all the time but what happens when the mind betrays us? Our brains start to make connections that aren’t accurate or based in reality, providing us with a distorted and unreliable picture of what’s going on. These deceptive patterns of thinking and information processing are referred to as Cognitive Distortions. These distortions can easily work their way into our world view without us noticing, thus it is important for us to recognize these kinds of thoughts and challenge them before they become a problem in our lives.
Examples of Cognitive Distortions
Here are 9 examples of different cognitive distortions:
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: Also referred to as “Black-and-White Thinking” which is the inability or unwillingness to see the grey areas that exist in our lives. Many of us will use words like Always or Never when we are caught in this distortion (ex. “I always mess things up, I will never be good enough”.
2. Overgeneralization: This is when we overgeneralize an experience based on limited information. For example, not receiving a job offer after completing an interview and believing that you are unworthy and not qualified.
3. Mental Filter: As the name implies, this distortion is when we filter our positive experiences and amplify negative ones. For example, a student giving a presentation stumbles over their words and afterward can only focus on how bad they presented despite getting good feedback on the presentation itself.
4. Disqualifying the Positive: Acknowledging positive experiences yet rejecting them as a fluke or mistake. For example, getting accepted into a college program and writing off because “they let anyone in these days”.
5. Jumping to Conclusions: This one can play out in two different ways, first as Mind Reading when we have the inaccurate belief that we know what someone is thinking. Assuming someone is mad at you simply because they are being more quiet than normal. Second, there is Fortune Telling, which is when people inaccurately make predictions or assumptions about future outcomes. For example, going on a few bad dates and assuming that you will never find love.
6. Catastrophizing/Minimization: Skewing of a perspective, meaning, importance, or likelihood of things either too much or too little. For example, believing that the event you are going to attend is ruined because it might rain.
7. Should Statements: A very common distortion in which people believe there are rules on how they and others “should” or “ought” to follow leading to us or others to fall short of these expectations. For example, feeling like you should eat something healthy or should do the laundry first and when you don’t you feel like you have failed yourself or others.
8. Control Fallacies: This fallacy manifests as either the belief that a person is a victim of fate (eternally controlled) or the belief that they are responsible for the feelings of others (internal control). For example, apologizing for your feelings because you think they make other people uncomfortable.
9. Fallacy of Change: Expecting others to change if there is enough pressure or encouragement. This distortion also assumes that our happiness or success rests in the happiness or success in other people. For example, trying to convince someone to change their attitude so you will feel less uncomfortable.
After reviewing some of these examples it is clear how commonplace and familiar some of these ways of thinking are for us. As innocent as these distortions may seem, they can quickly become dangerous to the way we perceive ourselves and others. Now the question is what can we do to combat some of these sneaky distortions? Thankfully, there are lots of different and helpful ways to challenge negative thoughts as well as different ways to tune into the body and our emotions to get us out of distorted thinking and into empowered feeling.
Challenging Cognitive Distortions
Ways to Effectively Challenge and Shift Cognitive Distortions
1. First it is important to notice and become aware of negative thoughts. Learn to listen for some of those indicators of negative thoughts. For example, words like always or never typically indicate a cognitive distortion is at work.
2. Once you become aware of these thoughts you can ask yourself some questions like:
a. Is this a fact or does it sound more like a false belief?
b. Am I 100% sure this will happen?
c. What would be a more helpful thought?
d. What is another possibility?
e. What would the people who care about me say?
f. What is the best possible outcome?
Pausing to think of alternative options to our cognitive distortions keeps us from falling down the rabbit hole of deceptive thinking and allows us to come up with new possibilities that are rooted in reality. An important thing to know is that our thoughts are generally responding to an emotion that is being felt in our body.
Cognitive distortions are warped and inaccurate interpretations of what is going on in our bodies. One of the most effective ways to challenge these thoughts and feelings is to tune into our bodies to get a better idea of what is really going on. Below is a helpful exercise to help move us from an “arguable truth”, which all cognitive distortions happen to be, to an “inarguable truth” by focusing our attention on our sensations, emotions, and wants:
1. Sensation: Name what is happening in the body- my jaw is tight, my chest is heavy, my head is hot, my stomach is turning, etc.
2. Emotions: Name the emotion associated with the feeling- I feel…mad, sad, glad, scared, excited. Naming the emotion always us to take responsibility for what we are feeling in the moment taking us away from black & white thinking or fallacy of control.
3. Want: Name what it is you want or don’t want- this takes us out of our “should” brain and empowers us to want what we want.
Let’s put this together in response to a cognitive distortion:
You go to a job interview and don’t receive an offer, your automatic negative thought is “I am not good enough, I will never find a job”. You notice this thought and turn your attention to your body and its sensations- you notice that your shoulders and throat feel tight, and your stomach is churning. After acknowledging the sensations, you name the emotions, “I feel angry, sad and scared”. Now to add the wants “I am angry that I worked so hard and didn’t get the job. I am sad that they didn’t choose me. Now I am scared that I will not find a job. I want to work at a job that I love.”
The biggest change is that tuning into the body allows us to simply acknowledge our feelings and sensations without having to blame or shame ourselves or others. It can be difficult to avoid negative thinking and cognitive distortions, but these tools will provide an empowering approach to reframing your perception and building the mind/body connection.
If you would like to explore or better understand your own cognitive distortions and learn how to liberate yourself from their trappings, our therapists at Evolve In Nature are highly skilled to support you in this way. Send us an email here to get in touch.