Identifying Cognitive Distortions: Key Steps to Change

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As humans, many people experience Cognitive Distortions, and it is essential to identify these distortions if we hope to change our behaviors. Recognizing these distortions is the first step in changing behaviors that impact our decision-making. Once we identify the problem, we can work on changing our minds' narratives. This information can be useful to anyone, especially people in recovery.

1. All or Nothing Thinking- When this distortion is present, you will notice uses or verbiage such as always, never, or everything. Maybe you do not get a promotion at work, or your order is wrong at a restaurant. You might say, "This always happens to me, or Everything is messed up. Things never go right!"

2. Overgeneralization—With this distortion, we see an event as a never-ending pattern. We generalize our world based on a single situation or event. In doing this, we may see life as hopeless. Perhaps you had a bad performance review at work, or a co-worker was unkind to you.

3. Mental Filtering—When our mental filter is on, we filter out anything positive and focuses only on the negative. Perhaps you wrote a great paper for class, but the professor dinged it for a technical error, but the professor commented positively about the content. However, you focus only on the errors.

4. Disqualifying the positive—This is similar to mental filtering, but only focusing on the negatives and actively disqualifying the positives as irrelevant or unlikely to happen again. For example, maybe you give a presentation and receive positive feedback, but tell yourself people are being polite or gracious. Therefore, the next time you deliver a presentation, you are certain you will mess it up because you have disqualified the positive feedback from the previous presentation.

5, Jumping to Conclusions- We are probably familiar with this one; it is when we conclude something negative is occurring without evidence. For example, the boss asks to speak with you in his office. You assume you will be receiving discipline or losing your job. Sometimes, people refer to this as mind reading or fortune telling.

6. Magnification or Minimization- An example of this might occur if you have a dinner party and forget one guest is gluten-free or a vegetarian. Then you assume this one oversight ruined the whole event. You magnify it. With minimization, you minimize things. Maybe you graduated and then believed, well, anyone and everyone can do that; it is not an accomplishment nor significant.

7. Emotional Reasoning- In this situation, you believe that because you feel an emotion intensely, the thoughts or thoughts related to the situation must be true! An example might be getting into a charged argument with a close friend; you feel very angry or sad, and then you may be convinced the friendship has ended. Another example would being very depressed and believe because of this feeling, you are a bad person.

8. "Should Statements"- In this distortion, you hold yourself to certain and rigid standards. "I should have cleaned the garage better," or "I should have aced this test." or "I should be a better person."

9. Labeling and Mislabeling-When you use negative labels regarding yourself or others, you define yourself or them in a very limited way. Perhaps you forget to call your mother back, then think, " I am a terrible son or daughter." I want to throw a wrench out on this one when you call yourself or others an "addict," "felon," or "criminal. you are defining yourself or the other person in a limited and negative way. People have to change their self-perception because they are human first. We need to reframe how we talk to ourselves.

10. Personalization- In this instance, we personalize a situation where we blame ourselves for things we have no control over. If someone around us is angry, we make the irrational conclusion that we are to blame; it is our fault.

A good strategy for reframing cognitive distortion is to keep a thought record and then address it! Thanks for reading!

I wish you success in identifying these distortions and hope you make progress.