Whether you have depressive symptoms or anxiety, it’s worthwhile to address the work of recognizing cognitive distortions in your thoughts. In cognitive-behavioral therapy, a common element of the various treatment protocols is the work element involved in minimizing misjudgments.
Cognitive distortions – what are they?
What are cognitive distortions? Cognitive errors speak of an unrealistic view of reality, often involving illogical reasoning. Most distortions are maladaptive for us, do not serve us and compound certain problems. In addition, distortions often confirm us in negative thoughts, in parallel omitting information that is inconsistent with our negative assumptions.
Cognitive distortions always occur?
Each of us tends to have some distortions. They often occur together and complement each other. When we experience various types of mental disorders, the number and severity of distortions increase very strongly. Most often, cognitive distortions dominate our daily life, which becomes not hostile, then we can assume the worst scenario. Often a distorted thought can be given more than one name. For example: “I will always be depressed” – can be seen as emotional reasoning but, as well as catastrophizing and predicting the future. Although there is some overlap in the names of distortions and the categories are loosely defined, this is sometimes useful because it helps to sort out irrational beliefs and begin to change over them.
Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy
Working to minimize cognitive distortions is cognitive-behavioral (or cbt) psychotherapy. The creator of the therapy is Aron Beck, who developed a theory in which our thoughts play a fundamental role. It is the thoughts that strongly influence our emotions and moods. Often experiencing negative thoughts, we are able to process our daily life in a one-dimensional way, without shades of gray. Without sufficient evidence, we build distorted judgments. Often we begin to perceive and generalize in such extreme ways about ourselves and other people, to whom we may attribute bad intentions.
As a result, we begin to misuse imperatives, judgments that we no longer discuss with. We treat imperatives as our own commandments, e.g. “I can’t show weakness,” “people will always take advantage,” “I must be strong.” Experiencing this type of distortion, we experience far-reaching negative consequences, for our mental health.
How to think in a different way? It seems not an easy task but possible. Practice makes perfect, in capturing our own distortions we can be helped by a psychologist who will point out the most important issues. Cognitive therapy can be helpful. Remember, cognitive distortions occur in every person, it is not our fault, it is a common phenomenon. However, if we have more and more stressful experiences, it is worth knowing, noticing and modifying our thoughts to change our states, non-functional behavior and live a more pleasant life.
List of cognitive distortions – types of cognitive distortions
Overgeneralization
Overgeneralization or overgeneralization involves automatically using a single piece of evidence and/or experience to draw an unwarranted, general conclusion. A person experiencing depression whose date invitation was declined may conclude: “that means I don’t like myself, will never date and won’t build a satisfying relationship.”
All-or-nothing thinking.
Otherwise known as dichotomous thinking. A person who thinks in all-or-nothing categories sees a certain aspect either as completely white or completely black, but never gray. This type of thinking oscillates between extremes. Usually terms like “always” and “never” are used. Examples of negative thoughts are: “If I don’t do it perfectly, it wouldn’t be worth doing at all,” or “If I gain two kilograms, I’m fat and ugly.”
Predicting, predicting the future
This cognitive distortion often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. A person tries to predict his future, often in negative colors. For example, when a student who does not understand the material predicts that: “She will never understand it.” As a result, such thoughts make it difficult to focus on the material, to take action, which increases avoidance and procrastination.
Reading minds
Is it possible to read other people’s minds? We can’t do it but we often try to figure out what others in given situations think of us. It’s a distortion that involves predicting, guessing what others think, in particular, how they think of us. Very often this type of distortion occurs in social anxiety. Examples of this type of thought are: “He thinks I’m skipping class because I’m lazy,” “She rates me worse because of my divorce,” “My boss is going to fire me.”
Catastrophizing
This is predicting the worst-case scenario, which is highly unlikely. Negative events sometimes happen but catastrophizing involves presuming an extreme, worst-case version of events that is unlikely. This kind of thinking can lead to ruminations and increased anxiety. For example, a person who is preparing for a vacation trip will think: “I will go on vacation and everything will be wrong, there will be bad weather, bad food, an ugly hotel and I will not rest at all.”
Focusing on the negatives
In selective focusing on the negatives, we focus on the negative aspects of a situation without considering the positive possibilities. We overestimate the negative significance of a situation, focusing our attention on them. One way to reinforce this distortion is to confuse our own behavior with the effect of an action. For example, when, after going through the hiring process, we didn’t get the job, we may start criticizing ourselves. The fact that the result was unsuccessful does not necessarily mean that we performed badly. In addition to providing ourselves with a distorted perception of the situation, we often blame ourselves for adaptive behavior, which can ultimately reduce the frequency of this behavior, e.g. looking for a job.
Exaggerating and minimizing
In exaggeration we most often magnify our mistakes, in minimization we overlook strong, good points. An example of maximization and exaggeration could be when a person forgets to pay the bill for a given month and thinks: “I can’t handle my daily responsibilities.”
Personalization
A person interprets situations or an event as saying something about him or herself, this usually refers to our negative character traits, appearances, which we believe we are deficient in. For example, when an interaction with a new person goes wrong, we may conclude that “This proves that I am socially hopeless and can’t meet new people.”
Labeling
In labeling, a single premise or behavior settles a holistic judgment about a person, or situation. Often the evaluation is pejorative and charged with negative emotions. Labeling is maladaptive because it creates negative feelings and inhibits problem solving. For example, a person who spends long hours at work is labeled a “workaholic,” a person who has made a mistake is a “moron.”
Emotional reasoning
In emotional reasoning, one comes to conclusions about oneself, the world or the future based on an emotional experience. Emotional reasoning is treated as a fact. For example: “I feel hopeless, so I am hopeless.” For example, a person with a phobia concerning elevators might say, “I feel a huge fear when I’m in an elevator. It means something bad is going to happen.”
Should
Although “should” or “ought” statements seem harmless, they may not serve us because they make it difficult to accept people and events. For example, when we say, “My boss shouldn’t be chaotic,” it can cause us to feel frustration and a sense of injustice that he is. The reality, unfortunately, is not so flexible. The right choice would be to accept or reject reality, not to change it. Let’s remember that accepting something or someone is unequal to supporting it.
Cognitive distortions examples. In which disorders do distortions occur most strongly?
Depression – rejection of positives, all-or-nothing thinking.
GAD – anticipating the worst-case scenario, predicting physical or mental harm.
Paroxysmal anxiety – catastrophic interpretations of bodily sensations.
OCD – misinterpretation of intrusive thoughts, excessive responsibility to prevent danger.
Recognizing cognitive distortions – how to think differently ?
Extracting our own automatic thoughts is sometimes difficult because we rarely reflect on our thoughts and are not aware of them. Some of our views about ourselves and the world are so fused with us that they do not seem distorted or problematic. Meanwhile, some of our cognitive content may be problematic and maladaptive for us. This way of thinking can cause malaise and even contribute to anxiety or depressive disorders. People with depression often have difficulty dealing with cognitive distortions and need therapeutic support. There are different types of cognitive distortions, the common point of all errors is: focusing on the negative aspects of a situation, hastily drawing conclusions, perception, perceiving reality in an illogical way, excessive prism of one’s own person and overconfidence in one’s judgments Cognitive distortions occur in our daily life, contributing to the amplification of difficult emotions. It is very important to look within ourselves and find the thoughts that are associated with a problematic situation or unpleasant emotional state. It is worth putting in the effort and minimizing the cost of mistakes. Less automatic thoughts increase our flexibility by modifying our negative cognitive patterns.
If you measure yourself with a lot of cognitive distortions then make an appointment-cognitive behavioral therapy