What are Cognitive Distortions?

Cognitive distortions are unhelpful, often irrational, patterns of thinking or believing that can cause psychological distress. Everyone experiences instances of distorted thinking from time to time but some people might experience it more persistently than others. When that happens, it can be quite upsetting and have a negative impact on your quality of life. 

What are Some Common Cognitive Distortions? 

There are many categories of cognitive distortion, and if you look into some you might find that a single thought could seemingly fall into a few categories. In this post, I’d like to highlight a few that I see most frequently in my practice. 

All or None Thinking

This one is also known as black and white or polarized thinking. It occurs when you tend to view situations in extremes. If you are using phrases like always or never it can be a good indicator your mind is falling into the trap of all or none thinking. An example of this might be having the thought “I always do this” or “This is never going to change.” With this distortion, it can be hard to see situations in shades of gray areas and consider the alternatives. For example, if you’ve decided to start a new routine where you will do a behavior every day and you miss a day, all or none thinking might compel you to give up on the habit completely instead of starting over the next day. 

Catastrophizing 

Catastrophizing is when you assume a worst-case scenario. It is often accompanied by a train of “what-if” thinking. Do you ever go down a rabbit hole of what-ifs? Usually, it starts with a small worry (maybe about receiving some critical feedback) and very rapidly (perhaps without your conscious awareness) snowballs into a catastrophe. So, “What if my boss is unhappy with my work?” quickly turns into “What if I get fired? → What if I can’t find a new job? → What if I can not longer afford my home? → What if I become bankrupt with no place to live?” A minor worry about your performance can have convinced you’ll be living in turmoil forever.  

Mental Filter 

In this cognitive distortion, your mind focuses only on the negative aspects of a situation or interaction. When you dismiss or have trouble focusing on the positive pieces that are present, you can find yourself dwelling in negativity. You may be having a just fine day and then encounter a setback, such as canceled plans, traffic on the way home from work, or a screwed up take-out order, and suddenly you think, “My day is ruined.” That thought seems to erase all the pleasant or even neutral things that occurred prior. And it certainly sets you up to experience the rest of the day as bad.    

Personalization

Here, the distortion leads to a tendency to take the blame for something that you had little to no control over; essentially, assuming a negative outcome occurred because of you and you alone. It can also be interpreting comments from others as though they are personal attacks when the commenter was really making a general statement. For example, you might have the thought, “If I had been a better friend/daughter/partner, my friend/parent/partner wouldn’t be struggling so much right now.”  

Mind Reading and Fortune Telling 

With these thought patterns, your mind assumes you already know the outcome to a situation or you know what someone is thinking. And, of course, we often assume the worst (see: catastrophizing above). Here, an example could be that when a friend cancels plans, you assume it is because they don’t want to spend time with you because they are mad or are trying to avoid you. 

“Should” Statements

“Should” statements are exactly what they sound like; telling yourself you should be doing, thinking, or feeling a particular way. Usually, it is holding yourself to some unrealistic expectation or standard and then feeling bad if you don’t meet it. A few examples could be thinking, “I should be doing a workout today” or “I should have known better” or even “I shouldn’t be so upset about this.” An old supervisor once said to me, “When you are using should statements you are should-ing all over yourself.” This stuck with me because when it happens it really can make you feel like shit. 

A Few Tips for Managing Cognitive Distortions

As you can imagine, and have probably experienced, going down these paths of thinking can be very frustrating and damaging to our mental health. Luckily, there are many ways you can cope with these tendencies. You can’t necessarily control thoughts, situations, or another person, but you can learn to identify these patterns in yourself and change your relationship to the thoughts in order to make them less stressful or impactful. 

Build Awareness 

The first step in being able to reframe or change your relationship to the thoughts is being able to recognize when the pattern is occurring. Some great ways to do this include cultivating a practice of mindfulness or journaling. This can help you step back, observe your thoughts, and gain insight into what is happening. For a deeper dive into mindfulness, check out my previous blog post: What is Mindfulness? 

Practice Defusion

Often cognitive distortions are distressing because we are speaking poorly to ourselves, anticipating a bad outcome, or fretting over being judged. We hold on to these thoughts and beliefs rigidly and accept them as if they are accurate. One way to cope with that is by defusing from them. Defusion is a way of creating distance from your thoughts. There are many techniques for practicing defusion but a very simple one is to take the problematic statement and start it with, “I am having the thought that…[insert problematic cognitive distortion here].” 

Label the Distortion

Sometimes, just knowing what to call a distortion when it happens can help you create mental space from the thought. It can allow you some perspective and taking a step back can often provide some relief in and of itself. 

Challenge the Thought

At times, it could be helpful to do some reality testing with the thought. Not necessarily trying to decide if it is true or not - we aren’t concerned with the truthfulness of it. More so, just helping to expand our awareness of our rigid adherence to the thought or pattern. 

For example, you can think through a series of questions such as, what is the evidence for this thought/expectation/belief? Has it ever happened before? If you step back and take an objective (not emotional) perspective, what is the true likelihood the feared outcome will happen? Often, there is a similar,  if not stronger possibility for a neutral or positive outcome. However, we tend to dismiss this because if the situation goes well, then great! It is only if it goes poorly that we need to worry. This is our mind's way of trying to prepare us but it can get taken way too far and cause us distress. 

Ask yourself: Do you have control over the situation? If yes, what actions do you need to take? If not, can you lean into defusion and mindfulness skills to lessen the distress caused by the thought? 

Seek the Alternatives 

Force yourself to come up with alternative explanations for things. If someone seemed grumpy in a meeting and you assumed it was because they are mad at you - can you spend a minute or two coming up with a few alternative reasons the person may have seemed grumpy? Maybe they were hungry. Maybe the person was tired. Maybe they have a negative interaction with a customer on the phone just prior to the meeting. 

Seek Out the Positive 

Take time to actively search for the positives in a situation. Since we sometimes have a tendency to discount the positive and become overwhelmed by the negative, it can be helpful to intentionally identify positive aspects. A good way to do this is to simply list it out. You could even start a gratitude journal to make this process more habitual. For more information on gratitude and how it can be helpful, check out my post about it here.  

Cultivate Self-Compassion 

Self-compassion is treating yourself with understanding and empathy. When you get caught up in negative thought patterns, it can be easy to be hard on yourself. Try practicing self-compassion by cultivating self-talk that challenges your inner critic with soothing, kind words for yourself. When in doubt, consider how you would word something to your very best friend when they are suffering. Would you talk to them the same way you’ve been talking to yourself? Probably not. Use that as a guide for your own inner voice. 

Take the First Step

It is possible to behave in ways that are inconsistent with your thoughts. The first step is to recognize the patterns and tendencies. After that, you practice new ways of interacting with the thoughts as they arise. This is not necessarily easy to do, especially building awareness.

If you are interested in identifying and challenging your cognitive distortions - reach out to me here. 

Summary/TL;DR

Cognitive distortions, like all-or-none thinking or catastrophizing, can negatively impact your mental health. By recognizing these patterns and practicing mindfulness, defusion, and self-compassion, you can challenge unhelpful thoughts and reduce stress. Small steps like labeling the distortion or considering alternatives can significantly improve how you navigate stressful situations.