WHAT IS COGNITIVE DISTORTION?

A cognitive distortion is an automatic thought, which is fast and does not give one time to consider logic, causing inaccuracies (Rosenfield, 2004).  There are different types of cognitive dissociations. 

The main ones being the following: 

Polarization - thinking about the extreme ends of a situation, forgetting that reality often lies in the middle. 

Overgeneralization - taking information from one situation and believing it will apply to all situations. 

Catastrophizing - thinking the worst (Stanborough, 2019), which in turn can reduce the chances of one taking a risk (Whalley, 2019).

Personalization - taking bad circumstances, as a personal reflection of oneself. 

Mind Reading - making assumptions that one knows what another is thinking. 

Mental Filtering - focusing on the negative and neglecting the positive. 

Discounting the Positive - identifying the positives, but making an excuse for why it happened. 

Should Statements - “I should have” this way of thinking is typically built on expectation and rarely improves the situation. 

Emotional Reasoning - the belief that thoughts based on emotions are logical and facts. 

Labelling - attempting to categorize people or situations to one label, when it's typically more dimensional than that. 

(Stanborough, 2019).

Therapists at Vaughan Counselling and Psychotherapy Inc. can help explain the different types of cognitive distortion to help you identify them in your thoughts. Identifying thoughts is important, as these thoughts are powerful, as people believe them to be facts. Moreover, it can create a thought-action fusion meaning thoughts may be inaccurate, but it will influence your behaviour (Whalley, 2019).

There are many ways we can correct cognitive distortions, all primarily based on CBT, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (Stanborough, 2019). To start, identifying the change in mood is a good indication of cognitive distortion. They make an intense impact on one’s mood (Whalley, 2019). Then you can identify the situation of when it occurred and the exact thought that followed. We can now take a minute to change the thought using logic (Stanborough, 2019). Debate if the thought is true or not. Put the thought on trial, with a judge, persecutor, and defendant (Whalley, 2019). Think of the worst, best, and then most likely outcome in a situation (Ackerman, 2020).  There are many approaches to modifying your thoughts but, therapists at Vaughan Counselling and Psychotherapy Inc will help discover what best suits you as you want it to be second nature (Whalley, 2019).

Cognitive distortions are based on beliefs a person holds, which is built from a person making sense of their own experiences (Rosenfield, 2004). As people go through experiences, they are building rules to live by, and cognitive distortions are typically a reflection of those rules or the disruption of the rules. It helps to understand why those rules were created, as they may have helped to cope and survive hard times and see if it is still as helpful and if not one can adjust those rules (Ackerman, 2020). Your therapist at Vaughan Counselling and Psychotherapy Inc. will help determine core beliefs and how to modify them to benefit you

If you resonate with any cognitive distortion, please contact us at 647-267-9853 or email us at info@vaughanpsychotherapist.com to book a session with any of the wonderful therapists at Vaughan Counselling and Psychotherapy Inc. All therapists at the clinic do CBT, Cognitive Behaviour Theory and deal with cognitive distortion and its comorbidity of anxiety and depression (Ackerman, 2020).

References

Ackerman, C.E. (2020, October 31). Cognitive Distortions: When Your Brain Lies to You (+PDF Worksheets). Positive Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/cognitive-distortions/

Rosenfield, B.M. (2004) Relationship Between Cognitive Distortions and Psychological Disorders Across Diagnostic Axes. PCOM Psychology Dissertations. Paper 119. https://digitalcommons.pcom.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1118&context=psychology_dissertations

Stanborough, R.J. (2019, December 18). What Are Cognitive Distortions and How Can You Change These Thinking Patterns? Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions#bottom-line

Whalley, M. (2019, March 18). Cognitive Distortions: Unhelpful Thinking Habits. Psychology Tools. https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-styles-cognitive-distortions-in-cbt/