Thinking Makes it So: The Top 9 Cognitive Distortions
How distorted thinking causes and maintains distress, potentially incurring preventable damage
This is Part 2 of a five-part series on why distress is not damaging.
I returned to campus in 2021 after many years in the ‘real world’, at a point where the oldest of the Gen Z cohort were starting PhDs – essentially an apprenticeship in research that will result in many of them becoming future thought leaders. At first, I just saw them as young intellectuals, recognising the 15+ year age gap between us, and assumed that was why I felt out of place; I’m neither young nor intellectually adept. But reflecting on my own level of life experience and lessons learned at the same age – not atypical of my generation – I became alarmed by how fragile and lacking in life experience these twenty-somethings are. I quickly noticed my own resilient responses to curveballs and setbacks were an oddity in this environment, as well-meaning faculty not only pandered to fragility, but in some cases seemed to actively encourage it.
In last week’s post, I referred to the type of thinking associated with ‘safetyism’ as a set of cognitive distortions – ways of thinking that are largely inaccurate and unhelpful. Thinking in these ways exacerbates distress, which is why cognitive behavioural therapy seeks to help clients challenge and reappraise such thoughts. Most folks who’ve been through a course of cognitive behavioural therapy will find themselves noticing unhelpful thoughts as they arise, and are easily able to challenge and reappraise their thoughts by themselves.
And seriously, once your mind is trained to see cognitive distortions for what they are, you can’t unsee them. You’ll quickly clock that a lot of folks around you are getting their knickers in a knot thanks to distorted thinking, not a realistic framing of the world around them.
When these thinking patterns are encouraged, we can expect distress to rise. And as cognitive distortions are known maintaining factors across the full gamut of mental health issues, to encourage them is to ask for trouble. As a therapist concerned with ethical and effective practice, I see encouraging cognitive distortions as just as unethical as enabling an addict.
With that in mind, this post provides a run-down of the nine most common cognitive distortions that we work with in therapy, illustrated with everyday examples of each one. I’ve also provided safetyism-flavoured examples of each cognitive distortion to illustrate how they feed a cycle of low distress tolerance and poor coping. And I’ve provided trauma-specific examples to illustrate how traumatic experiences can give rise to very understandable but unhelpful patterns of thinking that need to be unpacked and unpicked. If you’re wondering whether a cognitive distortion is a garden variety thought hijack, a safetyism-inspired belied, or a traumatic stress response, context is everything.
So, let’s take a look through the Top 9….
1. Emotional reasoning
When you let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality, that’s emotional reasoning. We’re all probably guilty of this from time to time, especially in highly charged situations. But feelings are not facts and should not be taken literally. Feelings do, of course, provide valuable information. But we need to unpack why we’re feeling a certain way, and not jump to conclusions based on what we’re feeling.
Everyday example: You’ve had a hard first week on a new job and are feeling a bit overwhelmed, and you think, “I’m out of my depth and not cut out for this.”
Safetyism example: You feel anxious when someone expresses a different political opinion from you, and you think, “This person is an enemy. I’m in danger.”
Trauma-specific example: You were in a car accident a few months ago and now feel anxious about the thought of getting behind the wheel again, and you think, “I’m not going to be able to control the car. I can’t do this.”
2. Catastrophizing
If you find yourself focusing on the worst possible outcome and seeing it as highly likely, then you’re probably catastrophizing. Of course, the worst-case scenario is a genuinely possible scenario, and as such it could happen. I’m not trying to gaslight you here. But it’s important to be able to weigh up a range of possible outcomes, and our anticipations should be anchored in more likely outcomes.
Everyday example: You miss the bus and think, “I’ll be late for work. This means I’m going to get fired.”
Safetyism example: You hear a trigger warning at the start of a presentation you are attending, and you think, “This is going to be awful. I’m not going to be able to cope with this.”
Trauma-specific example: You lost your home and contents in a flood a couple of years ago, and it’s been raining really heavily this week, and you think, “It’s happening again. I’m going to lose everything all over again.”
3. Overgeneralizing
A one-off event isn’t a pattern, but some folks see patterns in single incidents or multiple unconnected incidents. This is over-generalizing. It’s important to rack up evidence of a pattern before leaping to conclusions.
Everyday example: You go on a date with someone you met on Tinder, and they look nothing like their photo, and you think, “Dating apps are crap. They’re just full of fraudsters trying to get laid.”
Safetyism example: You’ve been hearing a lot of #MeToo stories lately, and you start to think, “Most men are misogynists and potential rapists.”
Trauma-specific example: You recently survived an unprovoked attack by someone from a different culture of origin and you were badly hurt, and you think, “People from that culture are not to be trusted, and I’m not safe around them.”
4. Dichotomous thinking
If you find yourself thinking in black-and-white terms, all-or-nothing terms, or binary terms, then you’re engaging in dichotomous thinking. Life is mostly shades of grey (probably more than 50 of them), and, as such, we need to be able to see nuance. Very few things are all bad and only bad. Maybe just generative AI and Harvey Weinstein.
Everyday example: You get your results for an assignment you’d worked really to perfect, and you’re disappointed to have not achieved the grade you’d hoped for, and you think, “I’ve failed at this.”
Safetyism example: A long-time friend of yours expresses a political viewpoint you disagree with and find offensive, and you think, “Wow, my friend is actually a really terrible person!”
Trauma-specific example: You were raised in a very unstable environment where violence was frequent and often associated with drinking, and you think, “I don’t believe anyone can drink without getting drunk and violent, so I don’t want anything to do with alcohol.”
5. Mind-reading
Some of us may be pretty intuitive but no one has the capacity to actually read minds. When we find ourselves making assumptions about what other people are thinking without good evidence, we’re engaging in mind-reading as a cognitive distortion, not telepathy. It would be far more helpful to ask questions to ascertain what people really think, though this can be nerve-wracking if you think you’re not going to like what they have to say.
Everyday example: You text your friend and she doesn’t reply for a few days, and you think, “Clearly she’s got a problem with me.”
Safetyism example: You attend a presentation on a topic that could potentially contain distressing material and no trigger warning is provided, and you think, “The presenter obviously doesn’t care about whether people get upset by this.”
Trauma-specific example: You were raised by one parent who regularly beat you without provocation and another who looked away, and you regularly find yourself reading things into strangers’ body language and thinking, “At any moment that guy is going to flip out and lay into me. I need to act first to defend myself.”
6. Labelling
All of us assign traits or characteristics to ourselves or others. I, for example, think of myself as pretty honest but also a bit of a people-pleaser. When we attach negative labels to ourselves or others, we’re often doing so in service of dichotomous thinking, so these cognitive distortions often operate in tandem.
Everyday example: You went on a date and thought you had a good time but afterwards the other person ghosted you, and you think, “This means I’m unattractive.”
Safetyism example: You overhear one of your colleagues asking a new employee, whose accent and skin tone differ from theirs, where they are originally from, and you think, “What a racist!”
Trauma-specific example: You suffered a vaccine injury during the COVID vaccine rollout and struggled to access support, and you now think, “My doctor is an untrustworthy shill for Big Pharma.”
7. Negative filtering
Focusing with tunnel vision on the negatives at the expense of seeing positives is common among people with depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. Life sometimes delivers lemons, for sure, but I’d be surprised if lemons were really all you got. The true picture is likely a nuanced patchwork of positives, negatives, and neutrals, and to see all of those shades is associated with better mental health.
Everyday example: Your partner is successful, attractive, funny, and treats you well, but their bad habit of leaving the cap off the toothpaste tube grates on you, and you think, “Why am I with such a useless slob?”
Safetyism example: Your boss has always treated you and your colleagues well and actively promotes diversity and inclusion, but they occasionally use politically incorrect humour, and you think, “My boss is such a bigot!”
Trauma-specific example: After surviving a workplace accident you had positive experiences with the healthcare system and you were well supported by friends and family, but you struggled to access compensation for injuries incurred, so you now think, “The world is unsupportive to people who’ve experienced trauma.”
8. Discounting positives
In service of maintaining negative judgments, some people minimise or trivialise the positive things that happen or the positive things people say and do. This tendency often works in service of keeping the filter focused on the negative. Allowing positives to filter through disrupts that focus, throwing one’s worldview into question – with obvious benefits.
Everyday example: You dress up nicely to go on a date with your significant other, and they tell you that you look wonderful, and you think, “You only say that because you’re my partner.”
Safetyism example: You’ve heard a lot of negative things about a particular public figure, but recently discovered they actually do a lot of charitable work for causes you feel aligned with, and you think, “Yeah, but they’re just virtue-signalling.”
Trauma-specific example: You survived an abusive relationship and needed to seek safety through the court system, which was confronting but successful, and while you were well supported throughout the process, you think, “OK, I got a DV order, but there’s no way they’ll actually enforce the law and protect my safety.”
9. Blaming
There are lots of sources of our negative feelings, and many of them can’t be controlled. We can only really control our own responses to the world around us. So, when we blame others, we are avoiding responsibility. This means we don’t have to change, and change is hard. But that means we get stuck in our negativity, and that holds us back from making the best of our lives.
Everyday example: In a counselling session you’re unpacking the reason for your people-pleasing tendencies, and realise it’s got a lot to do with the way you were raised, and you think, “My parents are the reason I always get walked all over.”
Safetyism example: Out of morbid curiosity you attend a controversial presentation at your university and are offended by some of what the speaker says, and you think, “The university should not have allowed that presentation to take place.”
Trauma-specific example: You were sexually assaulted by a person you went on a date with, and you think, “It was my own fault for leading him on.”
Challenge and correct
If you found any of those everyday examples resonated with you, that’s normal and nothing to worry about. We all fall into thought traps from time to time. It’s only a concern if any of these cognitive distortions is a common pattern for you, in which case, you can seek to notice, challenge, and reappraise these thoughts by yourself, without the need for a therapist. Save therapy and its associated pricetag for when you have specific goals you want to work on to improve your functioning and wellbeing.
The safetyism-flavoured examples I provide here serve to illustrate how safetyism-inspired beliefs are anchored in cognitive distortions. When you hear people say things like these, you’ll be equipped to challenge them. Though whether you feel it’s appropriate to do that will depend on the context you’re in, of course. I often feel like I’ve landed from another planet when I challenge distorted thinking on campus.
The trauma-specific examples are illuminating because trauma changes how we think, and people experiencing posttraumatic stress may well manifest more of these cognitive distortions more often. These are common after a traumatic experience, and when we look at the context in which they arose, they’re easily understandable and actually quite logical. But they’re not helpful for recovery; in fact, they hinder recovery.
A healthy and resilient society needs to challenge and correct cognitive distortions, and that takes courage. But courage, my friend, is what brought you here.