Identifying Cognitive Distortions

In this edition I will be reviewing the types of cognitive distortions that can sneak their ways into our thinking patterns, and providing resources on how you can help yourself have a better state of mind.

Full disclosure - I am not a mental health professional. Just a guy that's been through the fire and sharing what helped me.

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What are cognitive distortions?

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A cognitive distortion is exactly what it sounds like. It is a way of processing information through an internal narrative that distorts reality. That distortion makes you miserable.

Not all sources of misery are rooted in cognitive distortions. Sometimes things really are difficult and coping requires time and support. In other cases the pain is self-inflicted due to an issue in how we process information. If we process it based on a maladaptive belief that is rooted in a cognitive distortion, we call this a "limiting belief". Fixing limiting beliefs is a superpower that will help you in your PhD journey, whether you remain in academia or go to different sectors. This can help everybody.

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10 types of cognitive distortions

Borrowing from David Burns' seminal book on cognitive psychology, "Feeling Good", I will list the nine types of cognitive distortions, so you can self-assess and identify when you are engaging in them. Usually when we engage in cognitive distortions we engage in more than one at a time.

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1 - All or nothing thinking (also called binary thinking).

You treat outcomes as if they are binary. You either succeeded and are awesome, or you failed and you are a piece of garbage. You do not allow for nuance or spectrums in your thinking.

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2 - Overgeneralization

You tend to see patterns in things that do not actually exist. You link one failure to other failures and interpret them as a never ending pattern of failures.

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3 - Mental filter

You are unable to let a perceived negative event go. It becomes the sole focus of your mind, darkening your thoughts like a drop of ink in water.

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4 - Disqualifying the positive

You mentally punish yourself by rejecting positive experiences or past accomplishments as if they "don't count". By doing so you enable yourself to continue believing negative things about yourself or others.

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5 - Jumping to Conclusions

You interpret things negatively or maladaptively without enough evidence to do so. This manifests in two main ways

Mind reading - You overinterpret take non-verbal cues, benign gestures, and voice tonality through your own mental filter and convince yourself that you are able to read the minds of others and know their intent.

Fortune Telling - You overestimate your ability to see patterns and make predictions about the future based on some series of observations you have made. You engage in confirmation bias to convince yourself that you are right by pointing to other times you have correctly predicted the future and ignoring all the other times in which you were wrong.

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6 - Catastrophizing

You magnify the importance of things that create self-doubt (your mistakes, others' accomplishments) and minimize the importance of things that build confidence (your major accomplishment, others' struggles). A small problem becomes the end of the world, a major accomplishment becomes something anybody can do.

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7 - Emotional reasoning

Convincing yourself that because you "feel something" it is true. For example, if you feel like something is unfair, then it must be unfair. It could be unfair, but without hearing other perspectives and gathering all evidence, your feelings alone are not enough.

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8 - Should statements

You motivate yourself with "should" and "shouldn't" statements. These statements when used on yourself create guilt. When used on others they create resentment, anger, and frustration.

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9 - Labelling

You assign labels to actions and people and in the process of doing so oversimplify and overgeneralize. Instead of describing an event, you label it. Instead of saying "My manuscript was rejected", you say "My manuscript was no good". When someone treats you poorly, instead of saying "I don't like how he treats me.", you say "that guy is a jerk". Labelling is a way of adding permanence to something temporary or situational.

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10 - Personalization

Seeing yourself as the cause of some negative event or response (real or perceived), even though you were not primarily responsible.

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Applied examples

We'll go through a few examples here to show how to identify

Example 1

You apply for an industry job, get an interview with a recruiter, and promptly get a rejection email.

You tell yourself:

"Great! Another rejection! I'm just not cut out for this. I'm never going to get an industry job. I'm stuck in academia forever, and I'll never become a professor. I'm such a failure."

What are the cognitive distortions in your thinking?

1 - Jumping to conclusions / fortune telling. Are you really not cut out for this? Or did you just get rejected from something you were optimistic about?

2 - Catastrophizing. Are you really never going to get an industry job? Could it be that you're on the path to learning and will eventually succeed? Or have you decided mentally that you are either successful or a failure, with no in between?

3 - Discounting the positive - Are you such a failure? What about all of your accomplishments? What about the fact that you got into a PhD program to begin with? What about all of the things you learned along the way? Do none of those things count?

There are other distortions baked into this statement, but I'll let you find them for yourself.

Example 2

You got ripped off by a certain coaching company (hypothetically), now you're in debt, and you're still struggling to find a job.

You tell yourself:

"See! My professors were right. Corporate America is just so corrupt and greedy. I can't trust anybody and I am just going to have to do this all by myself. The world is an unfair and cut throat place. Everyone is out to steal something from me!"

What are the cognitive distortions in your thinking?

1 - Mental Filter - You did buy something that had perceived value and the people who made the promises may not have delivered on those promises. They may have mistreated you in how they went about the process. But does that mean your professors were right about Corporate America in general? Is n=1 representative?

2 - Jumping to conclusions - You had one bad experience with one bad company. Does that mean that now you are alone? Does that mean that now you have to do this all by yourself? Is it possible you are attempting to predict the future based on a single experience?

3 - Discounting the positive - There are people who are scammers, there are definitely systems that are unfair, but is the world as a whole a cut throat place? Is everyone really out to steal from you? What about all of the times people have done amazing things for you? What about all of the good you have experienced? Does that suddenly not count?

Again, many more cognitive distortions in the above example, but I'll let you sort that out.

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Solving the problem

We have reviewed the types of cognitive distortions and how to identify them in our thinking. But how do we self-correct? That takes practice and specific methods that are beyond the scope of this post.

For those interested in digging deeper I would suggest purchasing David Burns' book, Feeling Good and giving it a read.

I bought the audiobook on audible because he personally reads it out loud and it helps to hear the inflection in his voice. It also comes with a downloadable PDF workbook for you to practice. I strongly suggest completing the workbook. This is going to take active effort from you and homework to improve.

Full disclosure, I am not affiliated with Dr. Burns in any way and do not make money off of any purchases of his book. Just trying to share things with you that have improve my life.

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End

Thank you very much for reading this post. I hope you will keep what you have learned in mind this week as you go and face the world. I hope it makes a difference.

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