Distortion Practice: 057

Spot the cognitive distortions in your life

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Feb 19

Black And White Animated GIF | Geometry, Tumblr illustration, Visual illusion

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

Written by: Ewelina Ahmed, CBT Therapist, BABCP

You are on your way to a job interview in another city and while you are waiting at the train station an announcement has been made that your train has been delayed by 20mins. You have to catch another train after this one, you are starting to feel anxious and think ‘I am going to miss my connecting train and my interview. If this train was delayed then probably all trains are delayed. I will not get this job and I will be stuck in my current job forever now!’

📜 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 am going to miss my connecting train and my interview.

You are predicting that you will miss the second train and the interview all together. You are fortune telling. There is no way to tell the future no matter how likely or unlikely it is. So far all you know is that this train is delayed, when you imagine the bleak future events, you are likely to feel stressed and anxious. Feeling this way is not going to change the train running times but it won’t help with your nerves for the interview. What might be more helpful is distracting yourself for now and engaging in some interview preparation.

If this train was delayed then probably all trains are delayed.

You are thinking that because this train got delayed it must mean that all the trains are delayed today. You are generalizing. Just because this is happening now it doesn’t mean it will happen again with the next train. Even if it did there is plenty of time for you to make a phone call to the interviewer if needed.

I will not get this job and I will be stuck in my current job forever now!’

You are imagining the worst-case scenario. You are catastrophizing. You are envisioning a very scary outcome of the train delay resulting in you not getting the job and being stuck in your current job forever. Giving this catastrophic prediction a lot of space in your mind is likely to upset you and not very likely to actually come true.