Learn how to stop "overthinking" it and get on with life through one aspect of Cognitive Therapy: "The Ten Faulty Cognitions," a very successful and fast-working therapy that you can DIY!
The Ten Faulty Cognitions
Do you ever find yourself in a “mood” but not really sure how it spiraled downward so quickly? Or how those sticky, negative thoughts continue to buildup and leave you feeling more pessimistic, sad, and ultimately feeling that you are just “over it”? There’s a strong possibility that your mind is playing tricks on you and distorting your thinking. You may be tuning into a learned pattern of cognitive distortions, that perhaps began forming from a very young age.
The good news is that emotions are based on thoughts, and thoughts can be changed! We can learn to structure our thoughts to be more reflective of reality, allowing us to stop overthinking it, through one of the tenets of a very successful and fast working therapy (a miraculous remedy for many) called cognitive therapy.
...it’s not simply the events in our lives that cause us stress, it’s the way that we think about them...
“Cognitive therapy for stress rests on the premise that it’s not simply the events in our lives that cause us stress, it’s the way that we think about them. For example, two people may be caught in traffic. One person could view this situation as an opportunity to listen to music or get lost in thought and become (or remain) relaxed. Another person may focus on the wasted time or the feeling of being trapped, and become distressed.”
When we find ourselves in stressful moments, we tend to "magnify" the occurrence or use "Emotional Reasoning." This means that because we believe the situation is completely overwhelming, and that we should be upset about it as a result, we create a chain of emotions that potentially can ruin our day and bring on more aggravation than it's worth.
Psychologists have learned that by recognizing the way the mind is playing tricks on us, we can actually do something about taking charge of our emotions and creating a happier life. Once you learn to label the faulty thinking that sends you into this tailspin, you will be able to catch yourself before stumbling upon this bad thinking! By recognizing the method by which our psyche is intuitively altering our perceived thought, we can tell ourselves to stop and restructure those thoughts to be more reflective of fact not mental fiction. Important sidenote: you will also be able to zero in on when your friends and family are doing it, as well. Because let’s face it, negative emotions are contagious and can create a ripple effect of how others treat us, which can sometimes be in a less than desirable way especially when distorted thinking is at play. How reassuring to know that we have a proven tool kit to help us!
Cognitive Therapy is designed [...] to help you look at stressful situations with less distortion, enabling you to process negative thoughts, pain, and discomfort in a more manageable manner, with less negative overthinking.
Now, don't get us wrong, there are certainly challenges in life and unfair consequences that can justly cause anxiety and sadness. Cognitive therapy is designed to guide you in creating a healthy mental skill set to fall back on (even in very traumatic experiences) to help you look at stressful situations with less distortion, enabling you to process negative thoughts, pain, and discomfort in a more manageable manner, with less negative, over-thinking.
Below are the 10 most common and officially recognized cognitive distortions. We hope that you will begin to be able to notice these distortions in your everyday thinking so that you may begin to be able to reduce your stress and anxiety while shifting your focus, getting you back on track to living your very best life. We are confident that this knowledge will be a gamechanger for you, and if you feel it, we encourage you to pay it forward, please share it with a friend that could benefit (which is, let's face it, just about everyone.)
The Ten Faulty Cognitions
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking
This type of distortion is the culprit when people think in extremes, with no gray areas or middle ground. All-or-nothing thinkers often use words like "always" and "never" when describing things. “I always get stuck in traffic!” “My bosses never listen to me!” This type of thinking can magnify the stressors in your life, making them seem like bigger problems than they may, in reality, be.
This type of distortion is the culprit when people think in extremes, with no gray areas or middle ground.
2. Overgeneralization
Those prone to overgeneralization tend to take isolated events and assume that all future events will be the same. For example, an overgeneralizer who faces a rude sales clerk may start believing that all sales clerks are rude and that shopping will always be a stressful experience.
3. Mental Filter
Those who tend toward mental filtering may gloss over positive events and hold a magnifying glass to the negative. Ten things can go right, but a person operating under the influence of a mental filter may only notice the one thing that goes wrong. (Add a little overgeneralization and all-or-nothing thinking to the equation, and you have a recipe for stress.)
4. Disqualifying the Positive
Similar to mental filtering, those who disqualify the positive tend to treat positive events like flukes, thereby clinging to a more negative worldview and set of low expectations for the future. Have you ever tried to help a friend solve a problem, only to have every solution you pose shot down with a "Yeah but..." response? You’ve witnessed this cognitive distortion firsthand.
5. Jumping to Conclusions
People do this one all the time. Rather than letting the evidence bring them to a logical conclusion, they set their sights on a conclusion (often negative) and then look for evidence to back it up, ignoring evidence to the contrary. The kid who decides that everyone in his new class will hate him, and ‘knows’ that they’re only acting nice to him in order to avoid punishment, is jumping to conclusions. Conclusion-jumpers can often fall prey to mind reading (where they believe that they know the true intentions of others without talking to them) and fortune-telling (predicting how things will turn out in the future and believing these predictions to be true). Can you think of examples of adults you know who do this? I bet you can.
6. Magnification and Minimization
Similar to mental filtering and disqualifying the positive, this cognitive distortion involves placing a stronger emphasis on negative events and downplaying the positive ones. The customer service representative who only notices the complaints of customers and fails to notice positive interactions is a victim of magnification and minimization. Another form of this distortion is known as catastrophizing, where one imagines and then expects the worst possible scenario. It can lead to a lot of stress.
7. Emotional Reasoning
This one is a close relative of jumping to conclusions in that it involves ignoring certain facts when drawing conclusions. Emotional reasoners will consider their emotions about a situation as evidence rather than objectively looking at the facts. “I’m feeling completely overwhelmed, therefore, my problems must be completely beyond my ability to solve them,” or, “I’m angry with you; therefore, you must be in the wrong here,” are both examples of faulty emotional reasoning.
Acting on these beliefs as fact can, understandably, contribute to even more problems to solve.
8. Should Statements
Those who rely on ‘should statements’ tend to have rigid rules, set by themselves or others, that always need to be followed — at least in their minds. They don’t see flexibility in different circumstances, and they put themselves under considerable stress trying to live up to these self-imposed expectations. If your internal dialogue involves a large number of ‘shoulds,’ you may be under the influence of this cognitive distortion.
9. Labeling and Mislabeling
Those who label or mislabel will habitually place labels that are often inaccurate or negative on themselves and others. “He’s a whiner.” “She’s a phony.” “I’m just a useless worrier.” These labels tend to define people and contribute to a one-dimensional view of them, paving the way for overgeneralizations to move in. Labeling cages people into roles that don’t always apply and prevents us from seeing people (ourselves included) as we really are. It’s also a big no-no in relationship conflicts.
10. Personalization
Those who personalize their stressors tend to blame themselves or others for things over which they have no control, creating stress where it need not be. Those prone to personalization tend to blame themselves for the actions of others or blame others for their own feelings.
If any of these feel a little too familiar, that’s a good thing: recognizing a cognitive distortion is the first step of moving past it.
Now that you've equipped yourself with the knowledge of what these ten faulty cognitions are and how to notice them, you've taken the first step to a happier life! Save, print, or bookmark this blog post so you can easily refer back to it as a refresher when you're feeling overwhelmed!
And in the meantime, we are here for you! As a community, we stick together, we listen to each other, and we support each other.
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