Cognitive Distortions
What is a Cognitive Distortion?
a thought, that is not based on fact, that causes a person to perceive reality inaccurately due to being exaggerated or irrational
What are two forms of Catastrophizing?
Magnification and Minimization.
“I should be exercising more," create expectations that are not likely to be met. The pressure created from the “should” statements makes it difficult to meet those expectations and when the failure occurs there is guilt and frustration which makes you less likely to make another attempt.
Should Statements
You attend a party, but all your friends are busy engaging with other people. You feel like they do not have any interest in being your friend and engaging in conversation with you. This makes you think you don’t belong or are unfairly excluded.
Personalization
What is Internal Control Fallacy?
Has control of themselves and their surroundings. Responsible for the pain and happiness of others.
What is Mental Filtering?
You focus on the negative and ignore the positives.
What does one do when they disqualify the positive?
When you reject positive comments/affirmations about yourself because you believe that others are lying (for whatever motive)
“If I am not successful at everything I do, I am a complete failure”.
Polarized Thinking
Placing blame for relationship issues on your partner instead of sharing the responsibility for actions taken by both partners. You assume the victim mentality and think everything they do is to hurt you.
Blaming
What do Cognitive Distortions effect within us?
Feelings and behaviors towards self and others.
What is Labeling?
assigning judgment to yourself or others and identifying with it
ex. I'm stupid, dumb, loser, etc.
What is Overgeneralization?
Overgeneralization thinking occurs when a person focuses on a single event that occurred and makes a conclusion based on this single piece of negative evidence.
A student gets a good grade on an assignment, but the student overlooks it and tries to explain their good grade as simply luck or fluke instead of a result of their hard work.
Disqualifying the Positive
A person cheats and lies to their partner, when they leave, they feel that it is all the other person's fault for leaving. They think that they had no control over what happened, but they fail to see how their actions affected what happened to them.
External Control Fallacy
What effects do should statements have on you?
The statements are enforced on themselves or others. These rules create a lot of pressure, imposing a set of expectations that is not likely to be met.
What is Disqualifying the Positive?
Acknowledges positives but refuses to accept it. Finds excuses to turn it into a negative one.
What is Emotional Reasoning?
Whatever emotion a person is feeling during this thought distortion must be true in their mind. One’s emotion is accepted as fact because all logical reasoning is blocked out. They are incorrectly assuming that the negative feeling brought out by their emotions is the only truth.
You might feel lonely because at this moment you are by yourself and your friends are off doing something fun. However, from this feeling, you assume no one loves you or wants to be around you.
Emotional Reasoning
A person is meeting a date for lunch. However, their date is running late, and the person starts assuming the worst. Their worries escalate quickly, and the thoughts become exaggerated when there could be many reasonable explanations why a person is late.
Magnification
Name one technique in cognitive restructuring.
examples include, but are not limited to: decatastrophizing, putting thoughts on trial, socratic questioning, thought stopping, increase awareness of cognitive distortions, educate oneself, journaling, self-monitoring
What is the name of a cognitive distortion where you think of what you should have or shouldn't have done?
Should Statements (Should've, could've, would've)
Define Minimization?
Minimizing positive experiences. The importance of positive qualities is diminished.
A student receives a bad grade on one exam, based on this they think they are stupid and a failure and believe that in all future exams they will get a bad grade as well.
Overgeneralization
Two people at school have a disagreement about how the project should be executed. One person believes it should be done their way because that’s how it’s always been done. But the other argue based on facts that there are procedures that need to be followed. The person completely ignores these facts and argues their opinion to any extent.
Always Being Right
What cognitive distortion is this and how could you reframe this thought?
I visit a friend, but her expression seems negative towards me. She doesn’t want to see me and goes into her bedroom. She claimed she was sick but I feel like she is avoiding me.
Mind Reading.
She could really be sick and just wants to rest. There are many reasons why she wouldn’t want to see me, such as being self-conscious about her appearance or even worried she might be contagious.
What is it Polarized Thinking?
This is a “All-or-Nothing," or “Black and White” thinking pattern. Desire to be perfect or you are a complete failure.
What is Fallacy of Fairness?
All things in life should be based on fairness and equality. In reality, not all things work out the way we expect them to, which leads to feelings of anger and resentment towards those things in life.
When you are spending time with a friend, but they seem distracted or uninterested. You automatically jump to the conclusion that it has something to do with you. There could be many reasons, unrelated to you, why they are feeling that way.
Mind Reading
An athlete wins an award but does not acknowledge their accomplishment. They minimize the importance of the award because they might feel others already have the same award.
Minimization
Name one example of a cost-benefit analysis question.
What are the 2 methods of Jumping to Conclusions, making assumptions that are not based on any actual fact?
Mind Reading - you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence for this
Fortune Telling - you predict things will turn out badly
Define the Cognitive Distortion: Always being right?
Always have the need to be right. Internalize opinions as facts and will put others on trial to prove their opinions or actions are correct. Will go to great lengths to demonstrate their beliefs.
An employee who receives a performance review at work gets a good review but focuses on one negative comment their manager made about them during the review.
Negative Mental Filtering
You ask a colleague for help with a task you are working on. Your colleague quickly dismisses your attention and does not help you. Based on this you assume they are a selfish jerk.
Labeling
Sarah is a dedicated and hardworking employee at a tech company. For months, she consistently puts in extra hours, takes on challenging projects, and goes above and beyond to contribute to the team's success. She believes that her consistent effort and sacrifice will be recognized and rewarded with a promotion or a significant raise during the upcoming annual review. This is an example of what cognitive distortion?
Heaven's Reward Fallacy
What is Personalization?
Takes things personally, which causes a direct and personal reaction to what others do or say, even if it is unrelated. Assuming you have been intentionally excluded or targeted.
What is Heaven's Reward Fallacy?
Rewarded based on how hard you work. Will be disappointed because most things in reality are not fair. This leads to feelings of frustration, anger, and resentment.
You have a date with a wonderful person, but you predict that the date will go wrong. You start making assumptions about how the date will go before it even has occurred. The predictions are not based on any actual evidence.
Fortune Telling
A person might pressure their partner to change a few of their manners. They believe their partner is perfect in every other way except those few minor things and expects those changes will make them even happier.
Fallacy of Change
This method of challenging cognitive distortions includes: asking questions to stimulate critical thinking, reflection, and problem-solving, allowing clients to reach more adaptive thoughts.
What is Socratic questioning?