11 Cognitive Distortions Identified in CBT

What are Cognitive Distortions

When a person experiences an unpleasant emotion such as depression or

anxiety, it is usually preceded by a number of unhelpful self-statements
and thoughts.

Often there will be a pattern for such thoughts, these being called
cognitive distortions. In the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron Beck pioneered
research on cognitive distortion in his development of a treatment known
as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

Since then, researchers have identified many common cognitive

distortions. Many people can use cognitive distortions as an automatic
habit, without much awareness.

It is normal to fall into these thinking habits on occasion, especially when

feeling down. But when a person consistently and repeatedly uses
cognitive distortions, they can often cause themselves a great deal of
emotional distress and their mental health can suffer.

These thoughts can contribute to conditions associated with anxiety and

depression. Cognitive distortions are exaggerated patterns of thought that
are not based on facts and can result in people viewing things more
negatively than they really are.

People may attribute negative and unhelpful thoughts about themselves,

others, and the world. Cognitive distortions may be seen as a way to cope
with adverse life events.

The more severe and prolonged these events are, the more likely that one
or more cognitive distortion will form. These thoughts are usually not
rational or healthy in the long-term and can have a big impact on how
people feel and behave.

These thoughts are usually considered consistent errors in thinking and

people are likely to believe these thoughts without weighing up the
evidence to the contrary. Reversing cognitive distortions is often at the
heart of CBT, among other types of psychotherapy.
CBT helps people recognize these distortions and replace them with more
helpful, realistic thoughts. Below will be some of the many types of
identified cognitive distortions and how they can affect a person’s
thoughts and behaviors.

1. Overgeneralization

With this type of cognitive distortion, this involves making broad

negative conclusions that are far beyond what the situation indicates. A
person may take one instance that happened in either the past or present
and impose this onto all current or future situations.
Someone may have started a new job and had an awkward first
interaction with their co-worker. Someone who overgeneralizes may take
this one interaction and believe that because of this, they will be terrible
at the job as a whole. They will irrationally believe broad conclusions at
now being able to succeed based on one negative interaction.
With overgeneralization, words like ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everything’, and
‘nothing’ as frequently used in trains of thought.
For instance, a person who overgeneralizes may say ‘I never accomplish
anything’, ‘everyone hates me’, or ‘I always clean up after you’. If the
individual took a step back and analyzed the evidence, they may find that
these broad statements are far from the truth.
These thoughts may arise from a sense of learned helplessness,
depression, or anxiety disorders.
Making generalized and global conclusions on the basis of only little
evidence can leave someone thinking that things are uncontrollable,
inevitable, and out of control.
If this cognitive distortion ruminates, it could leave people feeling
frustrated, discouraged, depressed, and annoyed.
2. Mental Filters
This thinking style involves a ‘filtering in’ and ‘filtering out’ process,
similar to tunnel vision. This involves a disproportionate amount of
attention being given to small, negative details instead of seeing the larger
picture, which often has more positive details.
All the positive aspects of a situation get ignored or are distorted due
what may be a single negative detail. A good way to think of this is as if
someone is looking at the world through dirty glasses, and not seeing the
whole picture.
An example of this cognitive distortion is to imagine going out for a
romantic meal with a partner. You may be having a really nice time
together, but at the end of the dinner, you have a disagreement about how
much of a tip to leave.
If using mental filters, you may stew on this disagreement for the rest of
the evening. Although the rest of the evening may have been a positive
experience, you may focus solely on the one negative thing that happened
and exclude all other details that were enjoyable.
This means you may not remember the night as pleasant when looking
back on it, instead you may keep experiencing the negative feelings
associated with that event.
People may be more likely to remember negative parts of events,
especially when feeling depressed.
If someone continues to dwell on all the negative details in every
situation, this could make someone feel more depressed. This distortion
can also contribute to problems including anxiety, poor self-belief, and
interpersonal problems.
3. Discounting The Positive
This cognitive distortion is similar to mental filtering, the difference is
that the positive aspects of a situation are dismissed as something of little
value. This is common for people who are depressed in that they may
only focus on the negatives of a situation and not give themselves credit
for the positives.
They will usually explain away or have reasons for why they achieved
something. For instance, when they passed an exam, they may say ‘it was
an easy exam’ or ‘it’s something I should have known anyway so it
doesn’t matter’.
Another example is if someone compliments the way you look and you
dismiss it as them only ‘being polite’, or if you do well in a job interview,
you may think this is because they didn’t realize that you’re not that good
yet.
People who have low self-esteem tend to use this cognitive distortion.
This distortion is unhelpful as people may never feel proud of their
accomplishments, can have a lower sense of self, or may push themselves
to do better, beyond what is realistically achievable.
4. Jumping To Conclusions
Although there are times when we can have gut feelings which turn out to
be right, there are times when we are not right. People who jump to
conclusions do so in two ways.
They can do this when they assume they know what someone else is
thinking (mind reading) and when they make predictions about what is
going to happen in the future (predictive thinking).
These conclusions are usually negative to the individual, rather than
positive conclusions.
Mindreading
Mindreading involves the belief in knowing what others are thinking,
instead of considering more likely possibilities. Those who mindread tend
to assume that they know what someone else is thinking or that they
know the rationale behind someone else’s behavior.
For example, when spending time with a friend, they check their phone
when you are talking to them. Someone who mindreads may think ‘they
must think I am boring’, whereas a more likely explanation could be that
the friend is expecting an important phone call.
Another example is if your boss asks to see you in their office. You may
think ‘They must be mad at me. I am going to get fired’, when there are
countless other explanations that may be more likely.
Predictive Thinking
People can also jump to conclusions when they start making predictions
about what is going to happen on some future occasion, called predictive
thinking.
These are predictions where someone overestimates the negative
emotions or experiences that are going to be encountered. For instance,
when about to give a presentation for an assignment, you may have
thoughts such as ‘I will mess up’, ‘my voice will be shaky’, ‘I will do
terribly’.

You may have succeeded at doing something many times before, but
despite this, you may still predict things will go wrong.
This type of thinking is very common for people with generalized
anxiety and social anxiety disorder, and it is a way to increase anxiety and
stress further.
People with anxiety disorders may be more likely to avoid situations
where they predict something bad will happen, which in turn makes it
harder for them to overcome their anxiety.
5. Magnification
This type of cognitive distortion involves unreasonably magnifying the
negatives and unreasonably minimising the positives. This is similar to
discounting the positive, but instead of dismissing the positive attributes,
they are minimized in themselves, but magnified in other people.
Likewise, the negative attributes in themselves are magnified, but
minimized in others. People may often explain away their own positive
characteristics or achievements as if they are not important.
This distortion can be thought of as looking through the world through
either end of the same pair of binoculars.
An example of minimisation is if you got a promotion at work, you may
think ‘I was just lucky’. Or if you pass an exam you might believe ‘it
didn’t count, it wasn’t important’.
An example of magnification is if you made a mistake on a work
assignment, you may think ‘this is terrible’ or ‘I have failed at my job’.
Disqualifying one’s own attributes or achievements can have negative
effects such as lowering feelings of self-worth and sense of self. This type
of thinking can also affect behavior in a variety of ways.
It can contribute to feelings of anxiety, fear, and panic, because it causes
people to exaggerate the important of insignificant events.
People often believe that other people notice and judge their small
mistakes, when in reality, other people are probably more concerned with
their own errors.
At the same time, they will minimize their own ability to cope with
feelings of stress and anxiety, which can then contribute to increased
anxiety and avoidance of many situations.
6. Emotional Reasoning
This cognitive distortion involves believing something to be true because
the person feels that it is true. This is basing views of situation, oneself,
or others, on the way the person feels about them.
They will usually ignore or discount any evidence that doesn’t support
their conclusion, the only evidence that something bad will happen is that
they feel like something bad will happen.
People may experience emotional reasoning when they feel anxious about
something. They may have a feeling that things will not work out, despite
any evidence of this being true.
People who use emotional reasoning tend to take their emotions as being
evidence of the truth. This thinking can contribute to a number of
problems including feelings of anxiety and depression.
Whilst this distortion is common in those who have anxiety or
depression, it’s thought that emotional reasoning is a very common way
of thinking that many people engage in.
7. ‘Should’ And ‘Must’ Statements
‘Should’ and ‘must’ statements create precise and fixed ideas of how
others should behave, and overestimate how bad it is when these
behavioral expectations are not met.
It is not necessarily unhelpful to have some shoulding and musting
statements, such as ‘I should get to work on time’ or ‘I shouldn’t drink
alcohol and drive home’. These statements only become unhelpful when
they put unreasonable demands or pressure on yourself and others.
Some example statements which are unhelpful include ‘I should always
get things right’, ‘I must be the best’, ‘they should know better than that’.
Someone who repeatedly uses these kinds of statements may feel guilt or
disappointed in themselves. Likewise, they may leave someone feeling
frustrated, angry, or disappointed in others, resulting in interpersonal
issues.
8. Labeling
This type of cognitive distortion involves assigning labels to the self,
others, and the world. These are often negative labels which make global
statements based on behavior in specific situations.
People may use negative labels even thought there are many more
examples that aren’t consistent with that label.
For example, you may knock over a hot drink onto the carpet and say, ‘I
am such an idiot’. Or, if a friend appears to ignore you when you pass
them in the street, you may think ‘they are inconsiderate’.
These labels essentially generalize about people and ignores all the other
positive characteristics and actions. When stepping back from the
situation, you may realize that one action does not define someone.
The friend you saw on the street may have had a lot on their mind and
truly did not see you. Labeling people in this way based on only one
situation, can result in interpersonal issues. Likewise, labeling the self in
a negative way can impact on self-esteem and self-worth.
9. Personalization and Blame
Personalization and blame involve beliefs that others are behaving
negatively because of them, without giving any consideration for more
likely explanations for this behavior. They make take other’s behaviors
personally and take total responsibility for external events occurring.
The person may take 100% of the responsibility for the occurrence of
external events, usually when something hasn’t gone quite as wanted or
expected.
People can blame themselves for everything that goes wrong or could go
wrong, even when they may only be partly responsible or not responsible
at all.
Example statements of this cognitive distortion are ‘this is all my fault’
and ‘I’m to blame’. Carrying all the responsibility for something that the
person probably had little control over is a large burden and one that’s
likely to leave them feeling discouraged or overwhelmed.
Personalization and blaming are found to be common for people who
have experienced trauma or have been in abusive relationships. People
who have depressive or anxiety disorders are also likely to blame
themselves for external events.
10. Catastrophizing
Catastrophizing is also thought of as making mountains out of molehills.
When something negative happens, no matter how small, a person who
catastrophizes blows the situation out of proportion and will view the
situation as terrible or dreadful, even though the reality is that the
problem itself is quite small.
An example of catastrophizing thinking could occur when you are home
alone at night, and you hear a noise which startles you.
You may think, ‘someone has broken into my house, they are going to
kill me’. Another example is if you wake up feeling depressed in the
morning and think ‘what if I always stay depressed?’
These thoughts can relate to other cognitive distortions such as predictive
thinking and jumping to conclusion. Even thought the reality of the
problem itself may be small, when someone catastrophizes, things can get
very big very quickly and an individual may get themselves to a point
where it all seems out of control.
People with generalized anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive
compulsive disorder, and social anxiety often experience this thinking
where they believe things are going to be a lot worse than they really are.
11. Black And White Thinking
This is also known as all-or-nothing thinking as people who use this
distortion tend to see only one extreme or the other. They may view
things as either right or wrong and good or bad, without seeing the shades
of grey in-between.
An instance of this is if a student does not achieve straight As in all of
their classes, they may believe they are a failure. They may think ‘If I am
not the best at what I do then I am worthless.
This type of thinking is very unhelpful as it can lead to extremely
unrealistic standards, you’re the self and others, and can affect motivation
and relationships.
It can also set you up for failure if you quit something that you think you
will not be perfect at. This type of polarized thinking can also make
people miss the complexity of most people and situations.
How Can You Change These Distortions?

Identify the thought

When you realize that a thought is causing anxiety or affecting mood, it is

important to figure out which type of cognitive distortion you are
experiencing.

Most irrational patterns of thought can be reversed once you are made
aware of them.

Reframe the situation

Try to look for alternative explanations or shades of grey which may

explain the situation better. This may provide you with a more realistic or
positive interpretation to expand your thinking.

It may be helpful to write down the original thought followed by

alternative interpretations. You may not be able to change the events, but
you can work on redirecting the thoughts.

Perform a cost-benefit analysis

It might be helpful to determine how the thought patterns have helped

you cope in the past. Do they give a sense of control or allow you to
avoid taking responsibility or necessary risks?

Through this, you can consider what engaging in the distortion is costing
you. Weighing up the costs and benefits of the thought patterns could
motivate you to change them.
Replace absolutes

Instead of using statement that use words such as ‘always’ and ‘everyone’
try to replace these words such ‘sometimes’ and ‘this’. For example,
instead of ‘I always get things wrong’, this could be replaced to
‘sometimes I make mistakes.’

This can stop you from generalizing statements to every situation and
changing the statements to more realistic ones.

Label the behavior

Instead of labeling yourself with negative terms, it is more helpful to

label the behavior instead in a factual way.

For instance, instead of saying ‘I am lazy’, you could say ‘I didn’t clean
today’. Labels such as ‘lazy’ cannot be applied to every situation, but
labeling behaviors are more accurate.

Find the evidence

Before concluding with a cognitive distortion, consider asking yourself if

there is any evidence to back up your claim. You can do some detective
work to write down all the evidence for and against the claim about
yourself being true.

You may find that there is a lot of evidence to dispute your negative
thought or statement and that there may be a lot of facts you are
overlooking or ignoring.

Finding evidence encourages people to find alternative explanations and

consider how realistic their thoughts are.

Search for positive aspects

Even if this proves challenging at first, it may be useful to find some

positive examples in each situation where you find yourself using
cognitive distortions.

For every negative aspect, challenge yourself to find at least 3 positive

aspects to counter the negative. Eventually, searching the positives should
becomes a spontaneous habit and the negative thoughts should lessen.