Distorted thinking which can also be called as cognitive distortion, is a way of thinking negatively or poorly of a situation without having much evidence and facts in hand. Distorted thinking isn’t based on reality and is often irrational. It can be seen as one among the various symptoms of mental disorders or illnesses such as depression, generalised and social anxiety disorders, dysphoria and personality disorders. However, distorted thinking can not be called as a mental disorder itself. Distorted thoughts interferes with the person’s mental health and may have a huge impact on it.
In other words, distorted thoughts are like the errors in one’s thinking and perceptions of the world. The way a person interpret or perceives the situation is usually negatively biased. We’ve often heard people saying “I’m so unlucky in life” or “that person is so rude and arrogant in nature”, these are some examples of distorted thinking and leads to the formation of pre notioned misconceptions.
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Are distorted thoughts normal to perceive?
Distorted thinking is a part of human lives and is considered normal as we as humans can’t really remain positive and happy all the time, but if the frequency and intensity of distorted thoughts gets extreme and the thoughts so often begins to interfere with the person’s mental health, it is generally advised to consult a psychiatrist or mental health professionals for essentially required aids.
Causes of distorted thinking
Distorted thoughts or cognitive distortions arise as a result of some stressful or negative events, traumatic incidents, including childhood trauma or challenges faced at any phase of life may takes up the form of negative emotions and feelings that may leads to psychological damage. It may even increase stress and could lead to depression, anxiety or personality disorders.
Distorted thinking is a way for people to cope up with tough situations by predicting the things beforehand just like in case of anxiety. Human beings generally use distorted thoughts as a survival method with time.
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Types and biases of cognitive distortions
There are numerous different types of cognitive distortions. Understanding each one of them is essential for the success of cognitive behavioural therapy, which is discovered by Aaron beck. During cognitive behavioural therapy, the false beliefs and misconceptions of distorted thoughts can be recognized and replaced accordingly. Here, are ten most common biases generated due to distorted thinking.
1. All or nothing thinking:
All or nothing thinking also referred to as black and white thinking or polarized thinking, involves thinking or seeking for extremeness in a situation, either all or nothing, without considering the middle in between options. This leads to oversimplification of otherwise complex views.
Polarized thinking often leads to unrealistic views since the life generally exists in ‘between’ the two extremes. People often present themselves with the options of whether they have to be the most successful, top of the world person or else they might end up being a looser. However, there are so many options to consider in between them too, like average or mediocre, which are worth considering and help live a happy and a content life.
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2. Catastrophizing:
Catastrophizing is exaggerating over ones thoughts. Either a person maximizes the negative events or minimizes the value of positive events in life. Sometimes, people fear so much for the unknown future that it may leads to creating false beliefs by them and thinking negatively of the situation without even having much evidence. They assumes the worst case scenario and expect the worst possible thing to happen.
Catastrophizing turns the simple worry into extreme fear or anxiety. For example, when someone doesn’t receives a text from their favourite person, they automatically starts assuming that the other person hates him and don’t want to talk further, but the reality could involve multiple reasons like that person might have been busy with some work or might be resting up.
3. Mental filtering:
Mental filtering is a type of distorted thinking which involves filtering the negatives out of all the positives. People seems to be biased towards specific thoughts, mainly focussing on the negative ones and perceiving only the negativity. It may leads to feeling of hopelessness and in some cases become so extreme that it triggers suicidal thoughts.
4. Personalization:
Personalization, as the name suggests, involves taking everything personally, even when it’s not related or connected with oneself. People repeatedly, blames themselves for other’s behaviour and actions as well. It may lead to negative self perception and low self esteem. They tend to doubt themselves and overthinks about a situation a lot by repeatedly playing it all in mind. People keeps finding fault in themselves and feels like a victim most of the times.
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5. Mind reading
Mind reading involves thinking or assuming that one knows what others are thinking, specially negative thoughts about them and so they react or respond accordingly. It’s often getting confused with empathy, however, with correct evidence and greater understanding, the suspicion could be confirmed easily. It is more commonly practiced by children than adolescents or grown up adults.
6. Overgeneralization:
Overgeneralization refers to generalizing a single response or interpretation of an event or a situation over every other upcoming situations no matter how different the situation is from the previous one. For example, if a dog bites someone, he’ll get afraid from dogs and with every other encounter, will be forced to think that every dog is dangerous and could bit him.
7. Labelling:
Labelling is a kind of distorted thinking where a person labels themselves negatively after some undesirable events. Also, labelling generally involves using single word adjectives for oneself or others like failure, untrustworthy, looser, unlovable, etc. Labelling oneself or others leads to underestimating and being judgemental which may cause serious problems.
8. Anchoring:
Anchoring is focussing or relying on just first piece of information encountered. It’s like seeing and believing whatever is perceived first, without going much in depth of information or confirming it once again. Anchoring leads to having incomplete information and forming biased judgements. It inhibits a person’s ability to think openly and considering many other opinions.
9. Confirmation bias:
Confirmation bias takes place when one gathers or seeks out for the only information which confirms their pre existing notions or aligns with the already existing beliefs. This leads to reinforcement of false biases and limits the person’s ability to look upon the world objectively or with a newer perspectives.
10. Hindsight bias:
Hindsight bias is a type of distorted thinking that makes an individual believe that they could easily predict any situation or the event is highly predictable, once it has occurred the same way an individual believed or wanted it to happen. Here, people generally overestimates their ability to predict the future or circumstances beforehand.
These are various types and biases that are created due to distorted thinking which could fuel ones anxiety and creates many misconceptions or false, misleading beliefs in a person’s mind about themselves as well as the society and the world. Because of such biases, the quality of life for a person gets reduced as they tends to focus more on negativity around the world and within themselves.
Also Read: Empathy vs Sympathy: Understanding the Difference
Unravel the distorted thoughts
Distorted thoughts can be visualised as a filter or tinted glasses that is worn by an individual to prevents them from viewing the world and it’s people as it is. Here are few techniques anyone could practice in order to unravel or undo the distorted thoughts by challenging cognitive distortions:
1. Journal all thoughts:
Maintain a journal and write down whatever is being felt or perceived at a particular time and situation. If some specific thoughts, feelings triggers or affects an individual’s mental health, it’s best to write it in the journal for them to think and contemplate over it later and look for the better alternative thinking process. This way a person could be able to track their negative thoughts and change them for the better.
2. Cognitive reframing:
Cognitive reframing is a technique that could help a person overcome the bias generated due to ‘all or nothing thinking’. For practicing Cognitive reframing, first notice the all or nothing thinking pattern and then try to reframe those negative thoughts into more positive and rational ones.
3. Look for the root cause of distorted thinking:
Determining the origin and validity of negative thoughts could help an individual understand where those thoughts are primarily coming from, if they are real or have any evidence. This way a person could get rid of distorted thinking by replacing it with more facts and evidence based positive thoughts.
4. Mindfulness based techniques:
With the help of Mindfulness, a person could just stay in the present without considering the past incidents or future assumptions and scenarios. It makes an individual think from broader perspectives by keeping only the present moment in the actual view.
5. Catastrophic results:
As the name suggests, this strategy helps an individual challenge their catastrophizing thoughts by considering the real, in hand outcomes and acknowledging one’s ability to cope with them, no matter what the end results could be. By doing this, the person would be able to focus more on positive thoughts and feelings and seek resilience in all conditions.
References+
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cognitive-distortions
- https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions#types
- https://www.verywellmind.com/all-or-nothing-thinking-2584173#:~:text=If%20you%20tend%20to%20engage,thoughts%20with%20more%20realistic%20ones.
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