10 More Cognitive Distortions to Be Aware Of
Our goal at Hope + Wellness is to help all of our clients live happier, healthier lives where they can cope with anything that comes their way. One way we do this is by teaching coping skills and using evidence based modalities to treat mental health disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one modality we use that helps people challenge their negative thought patterns and eventually change their way of thinking.
You might wonder why you’d want to change the way you think - after all, isn’t that what makes you, you? However, sometimes our thoughts can lead to major distress. If you’ve experienced a mental health disorder, you may be familiar with having to challenge your thoughts. It’s important to remember that our thoughts and feelings aren’t facts, and just because we think something doesn’t make it true. We use CBT to treat a number of different issues, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, perinatal mood + anxiety disorders, sleep challenges, and relationship problems.
One aspect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is identifying the patterns in your thinking. We have a name for these patterns in CBT - they’re called cognitive distortions. A cognitive distortion is a faulty way of thinking that we learn to believe is true. CBT teaches you to identify your cognitive distortions so you can challenge the negative thought patterns and not let them control your life. We’ve talked about cognitive distortions before on the blog - we described 8 different distortions that pop up commonly for people. However, there are far more than just 8 so we’re back with more examples. The first step to changing your negative thought patterns is to spot them, so keep an eye out for any of these cognitive distortions in your thoughts.
Here are 10 more cognitive distortions to watch out for in your thinking:
1. Magnification + Minimization
Magnification is when you exaggerate the importance of events. Minimization is the opposite - it’s when you downplay the importance of events. For example, you oversleep and miss an important interview, you may magnify the importance of your alarm going off at the right time and minimize your role in it not going off at the right time (i.e. you forgot to charge your phone). This cognitive distortion keeps you from accepting your role in what happened.
2. Should statements
Should statements are beliefs that things should always be a certain way. When you’re constantly reminding yourself that you ‘should’ be doing something, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Should statements give you unreasonable expectations for what you’re able to accomplish and make you feel less than for doing your best. If you use these a lot, you may never feel like what you do is good enough.
3. Magical thinking
Magical thinking is the belief that your thoughts or actions will influence a specific outcome. You may think that because you’re a good person, bad things can never happen to you. Magical thinking can also be when you assume that your problems will be magically solved. For example, you might feel like your “real life” will start when you lose weight or find a romantic partner. This type of thinking can make us feel like we’re in control when that’s not really the case.
4. Fortune telling
Fortune telling is a distortion that’s related to jumping to conclusions, a distortion we covered in our last post. Jumping to conclusions means you’ve decided something without evidence. One aspect of this is predicting what people will do or say based on your interpretation of events. You might feel like you know how things will go, so there’s no hope doing anything differently. However, people have their own free will and you have no control over what they’ll do, nor can you predict it. It might make you feel in control at the time, but overall it will leave you feeling lonely.
5. Control fallacies
Control fallacies are the false idea that we are controlled by either external or internal factors. If you feel that you are externally controlled, you might feel like you have no control over your life. You may feel like fate is deciding things for you and you’re just along for the ride. If you feel that you’re internally controlled, you have the false belief that you are able to control everything around you at all times. It can be hard to let go of the idea that not everything is about you, but it’s important to start giving up that belief.
6. Fallacy of fairness
This is the false belief that everything in life must be fair and that you are the only one capable of judging what is fair. This fallacy can leave you feeling resentful because you feel that you know better than everyone else but they won’t believe you. However, it’s important to remember that life isn’t fair, even if you strongly believe it should be. Insisting that everything always be fair is a recipe for hopelessness and resentment.
7. Blaming
This type of cognitive distortion is when someone places blame for something solely on one person - either someone else or themselves. People who blame others always find a way to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, and people who blame themselves always find a way to take on something that isn’t theirs to carry. The fact is that sometimes things happen, and it is our fault. Sometimes something happens to us, and we have nothing to do with it.
8. Fallacy of change
This fallacy tells us that if we pressure or cajole someone enough, they will change the way we want them to. People are allowed to make their own decisions, even if you don’t agree. It is not on others to change their behavior to make you happy - you need to make yourself happy. It’s not fair to put your happiness on other people.
9. Always being right
When someone struggles with always being right, they find it almost impossible to admit that they are wrong. This distortion can involve constantly trying to prove that you’re right by whatever means necessary, even though that can be very alienating to others. Being right is not more important than people’s feelings.
10. Labeling
Labeling is when you minimize something down to a single (usually negative) descriptor. For example, you might have yourself labeled as “lazy” even though there isn’t much evidence for it. You might label other people as “jerks” or “failures”. This is a dangerous type of overgeneralization that can leave you doubting your self worth and alienating others - after all, no one wants to be labeled.