{"id":15246,"date":"2019-04-16T00:40:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T06:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unk.com\/blog\/?p=15246"},"modified":"2024-10-15T04:43:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T10:43:33","slug":"4-main-cognitive-distortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unk.com\/blog\/4-main-cognitive-distortions\/","title":{"rendered":"The 4 Main Cognitive Distortions"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.”<\/em><\/p>\n

– Rene Descartes<\/p>\n

What kinds of thoughts do you have? Do you tend to see things in polarized, all-or-nothing ways? Do you have an inclination towards hopelessness or tend to overly blame others or yourself?<\/p>\n

It used to be assumed that all our emotions were formed by our thoughts. That changing thoughts would be enough to improve our feelings.<\/p>\n

But modern therapeutic practitioners understand that many emotional problems result from, and are maintained by, so called faulty pattern matching<\/a> in the emotional centers of the brain. This process of pattern matching comes prior to conscious thought \u2013 or else bypasses it completely.<\/p>\n

Once we understand how a pattern in the environment can trigger a pattern within the mind and body without<\/em> thinking even being involved,1<\/sup> we can use techniques that help the emotional mind directly. Once we have used calming techniques for, say, PTSD<\/a>, we will find that because the emotion has changed,<\/em> the thoughts inevitably change as well.<\/p>\n

The emotional brain can, as it were, operate independently from the cognitive mind. But of course, it is still valuable to observe thinking errors, both because they result from excessive emotion and because they can, in turn, lead to it.<\/p>\n

So how do we help clients begin to see that their thoughts may be serving them poorly?<\/p>\n

Cognitive distortions can only be seen when the mind is still<\/h3>\n

As long as the pool of water is agitated, the reality reflected from its surface will appear distorted. Only when it calms over can its still reflection give a better approximation of reality. So too with the mind.<\/p>\n

Many clients will need to be calm enough before they can see their own thinking biases and cognitive distortions. Sometimes we need to help still the mind in order to help our clients see reality more evenly, in less distorted ways.<\/p>\n

This is why psychological practitioners learn how to relax clients using mindfulness<\/a> and clinical hypnosis<\/a> \u2013 to help the part of the person that is, if you like, outside of thought<\/em> to observe more directly.<\/p>\n

To help our clients see their own thoughts and emotional patterns more clearly, we need to help them expand a sense of their observing self<\/em><\/a>. We can do this both by helping them become calmer and also by directly helping them to see the patterns of their thoughts and the limitations of such thinking.<\/p>\n

How to help your client see their cognitive distortions<\/h3>\n

So, feelings lead to thoughts at least as much as the other way about. But it’s still valuable to help clients understand that their thinking errors are<\/em> errors, and that they, just like everyone else, see reality not necessarily exactly as it is but rather through the distortions of the emotionally conditioned mind.<\/p>\n

When cognitive distortions and thinking errors coalesce into internal patterns about how the world works and who the self and other people fundamentally are, they form a narrative. We construct stories<\/a> based on ideas of cause and effect that can sometimes be really disempowering.<\/p>\n

We call these stories beliefs<\/a>. Sometimes we are not even really aware of our own emotionally based beliefs. Many of our assumptions as to how reality works lie within the unconscious mind.<\/p>\n

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So we can help bring a client’s cognitive distortions to consciousness and therefore help them calmly check out their validity. In order to see what their main cognitive distortions are, the client needs to be calm. But, in turn, seeing the limitations of their own thinking can produce greater calm and wellbeing.<\/p>\n

So what are the main cognitive distortions and how can we help our clients see them for what they are?<\/p>\n

Cognitive distortion one: All-or-nothing thinking<\/h3>\n

In a way, all thinking errors stem from all-or-nothing, black-or-white, or absolutist<\/em> thinking. This is sometimes referred to as emotional<\/em> or simplistic thinking. We see it in depression<\/a>, anxiety<\/a> conditions, and maladaptive perfectionism<\/a>, as well as, of course, in the angered mind<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reality is seen as either completely this or completely that.<\/p>\n

If, for a moment, we view thought as a reflection of feeling, then we can see that the more emotional you become, the closer you get to the all-or-nothing emotional state of the fight-or-flight response<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So if we live with heightened stress, we are more ‘fight or flighty’ and therefore our thinking tends to be more extremist and polarized. When someone is in all-or-nothing mode you will hear them make sweeping overgeneralizations.<\/p>\n

Political leaders do the same thing when they want to raise emotion and quell nuanced thought \u2013 they may talk in terms of extremely<\/em> this or absolutely<\/em> that.<\/p>\n

And research into the language of depressed and anxious people has found that someone’s level of absolutist language correlates with their likelihood of contemplating or attempting suicide.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Examples of all-or-nothing thinking are:<\/p>\n