You can get better at revealing the cognitive distortions in your life with a little practice. Try identifying the distortions that are happening in this short story:
📖 Short story
You have been dog sitting for your friend. You took the dog to the park and he has run off after another dog. You have been calling and looking for him, you are panicking and think ‘I will never find him and my friend will be furious with me! What if something bad happened to him? I read in the news recently about someone’s dog being stolen in the park, what if he was snatched by someone?’
Which of the following distortions are you experiencing? You can find the answers below.
📜 Common distortions
👯 Generalizing: Assuming that because you experienced something in the past this must mean it will happen again. “A dog bit me when I was 5, therefore all dogs are dangerous and will bite me.”
☄️ Catastrophizing: Are you focused on the worst case scenario? Regardless of how likely it is.
🧠 Mind reading: Assuming what others think. “They probably think I'm an idiot.”
✨ Should statements: Pressuring yourself with things you should have done differently. “I should have eaten healthier today."
🌓 All or nothing thinking: Thinking in extremes. You are either a success or a failure. "She doesn't want to date me. I'll never find love.”
🕹️ Out of your control: Are you worrying about something out of your control?
🔮 Fortune telling: Assuming future events. “I just know that something is going to go wrong and I'm going to be late for my interview.”
🚫 Disqualifying the positive: Focusing only on the bad. “He said that I looked nice but he says that to everybody. He was just being polite."
🏷️ Labeling: Taking one characteristic of a person and applying it to the whole person. “I failed a test, so I'm a bad student.”
🔎 Magnifying the negative: Judging a situation entirely on the negative parts and not considering the positive parts. “I ate healthy this week, but I skipped the run I had planned.”
🎭 Emotional Reasoning: Assuming that just because it feels bad, it must be bad. Forgetting that our feelings are just a reaction to our thoughts. “I feel anxious so it must be scary!”
🪞 Comparing and despairing: Focusing only on the positive aspects in others and comparing ourselves negatively against them. ‘Their hair is so much better styled than mine, I look horrible in comparison’.
💡 Answers
I will never find him and my friend will be furious with me!
You are imagining what will happen and the future isn’t looking good in your mind. You are fortune telling. It is impossible to predict what will happen in the future, therefore it might not be helpful to spend time predicting it, especially if the future you are imagining is scary. It is expected that you are worried right now but staying in the present and continuing looking for the dog might be the best solution for now.
What if something bad happened to him?
You are visualizing the worst-case scenario. You are catastrophizing. The dog has only been missing for an hour at this point and what you do know for sure is that he has run off after another dog, for all you know he does that all the time. The worst-case scenario isn’t looking likely at this moment in time. Take few deep breaths and just keep looking for him!
I read in the news recently about someone’s dog being stolen in the park, what if he was snatched by someone?
You are thinking about the news article you read and imagining that the same thing could be happening to you right now. You are generalizing. Just because another person’s dog has been stolen recently, it doesn’t mean that your friend’s dog has been stolen too.
🌇 Conclusion:
Everyone has cognitive distortions sometimes. But we can prevent them from taking over our lives with a little practice everyday.
Here’s another powerful tool for defeating cognitive distortions: Triple column technique.
📚 Read more
More distortions: https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion
Youtube: What are Cognitive Distortions?
📱 Practice more
Download Bold CBT. It’s an iOS app that I made which makes it easier to do CBT exercises like this one.
🙏 Thank you
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