Overview
Cognitive distortions in the context of psychology are irrational thought patterns that can worsen symptoms of depression or anxiety. Common distortions include:
-
All-or-Nothing Thinking
-
Catastrophizing
-
Overgeneralization
-
Mental Filtering
-
Disqualifying the Positive
-
Mind Reading
-
Fortune Telling
-
Emotional Reasoning
-
“Should” Statements
-
Personalization
A major goal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is identifying and then reframing these patterns within oneself to reduce unhelpful experiences.
History and Etymology
Cognitive distortions were popularized within psychotherapy by Aaron Beck in the 1960s as part of the movement towards CBT.
Commentary
My thoughts on CBT and the concept of cognitive distortions have changed a lot over time. Initially, I really liked the idea of being able to prune my mind of irrational and dysfunctional ideas to have a better mental toolkit at my disposal. Over time though, I ended up highly skeptical of putting the idea of cognitive distortions into practice.
As a general rule, I dislike the idea of institutions shaping reality for individuals. Power dynamics inherently corrupt the exchange of knowledge in my view as it is impossible for someone subject to another’s power to not alter their conduct based on the fact of that power alone, almost by the definition of what power is as a capacity to change aspects of reality. I argue that, within the context of Eurocentric “Western” nations, spiritual and mental healing is heavily modeled after the moral-psychology of the institution of confession, where an expert backed by an institution is given the power to elicit and define someone’s true essence so that they conform to the social expectations that define functionality.
Cognitive distortions and irrationality are concepts that take for granted that some objective reality exists and that someone’s interpretation of reality can be determined to be out of alignment with the objective version based on their emotional distress. Consider that people aren’t assigned to CBT because they’ve demonstrated a pattern of irrational thinking or logical errors, but because they’ve experienced emotional distress that has risen to the level of a pathologized health condition, and it is believed that improving the client’s rational or logical thinking can improve their symptoms of distress. The Cognitive Errors Rating Scale (CERS) is a measure of 15 cognitive errors that trained evaluators can apply to the transcripts of therapy sessions, and studies that examine its correlation to other scales like the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) find that there generally isn’t much observable difference in depression symptoms between those with high and low cognitive distortions. In fact, most clients processed the data they were considering quite logically, and where they actually struggled most was in considering all available data before applying their logic.
For instance, a client whose boss reprimands them for being late one day might experience distress and believe that they’re being seen as a failing employee. The issue here isn’t that the client is processing the feedback illogically, as it follows logically that if someone is being fairly reprimanded then they failed to meet some expectation, but that the client is overlooking all the positive feedback they’re received to assign more weight to the negative feedback. This isn’t a logic or rationality issue as much as an attunement to potential threats as a survival mechanism. Someone who grew up in an environment where authority figures were quick to deliver harsh consequences for minor failures is not being irrational in placing much more weight on negative feedback than positive feedback. No amount of positive feedback guarantees job security, but any negative feedback can become a reason to be fired or laid off. The client might spiral into all-or-nothing thinking if they feel “I can’t do anything right,” but “I won’t have security no matter how many things I do right” is a distinct and very realistic premise. A therapist can’t step into the client’s life and understand it through their lived experiences to make a comparable judgment either. Consequently, studies have repeatedly found that CBT practitioners lack consensus around the use of cognitive distortion categories and consistently blur the lines between formal logic problems and differences in a client’s personal values. One study found 567 distinct variations of what a cognitive distortion is across clinical literature.