Cognitive Distortions: 15 Common Thinking Errors & How to Fix Them
Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns. Negative thinking gets reinforced. So does negative emotion. These thinking errors can have a significant impact on mental health, contributing to anxiety, depression and relationship difficulties, and understanding and challenging them is a core component of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
What Are Cognitive Distortions?
Cognitive distortions are biased perspectives. We take them on ourselves, and on the world around us. They are habitual ways of thinking, often inaccurate and negatively biased, and when left unchallenged they can become automatic and deeply ingrained.
15 Common Cognitive Distortions
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking
Black and white categories. Fall short of perfect, and you see yourself as a total failure.
2. Overgeneralization
A single negative event becomes a never-ending pattern of defeat. One bad experience means it will always happen this way.
3. Mental Filter
You pick out one negative detail and dwell on it exclusively. Your vision of all reality darkens.
4. Disqualifying the Positive
Positive experiences get rejected. They “don’t count”. For some reason or other.
5. Mind Reading
You decide, without evidence, that someone is reacting negatively to you. It is never checked out.
6. Fortune Telling
Bad outcomes are what you anticipate. The prediction feels like an established fact.
7. Catastrophizing
Problems and errors get exaggerated. Your desirable qualities get minimised.
8. Emotional Reasoning
Your emotions, you assume, reflect reality. “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
9. Should Statements
With shoulds and shouldn’ts, you try to motivate yourself. It is as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything at all.
10. Labelling
Your errors become the basis for a completely negative self-image. The error goes undescribed. A negative label gets attached to you.
11. Personalization
Responsibility for a negative external event seems, to you, to be yours. In fact, it was not primarily your responsibility.
12. Fallacy of Change
Other people, you expect, will change and suit you. Pressure or cajole them enough, and they will.
13. Always Being Right
Your opinions and actions are continually on trial. They have to be proved correct.
14. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy
Every sacrifice and act of self-denial is expected to pay off. Someone is keeping score.
15. Blaming
For your pain, you hold other people responsible. Or you blame yourself for every problem.
How to Challenge Cognitive Distortions
CBT offers effective techniques. They help you identify and challenge cognitive distortions:
- Thought Records: Document situations, thoughts, and emotions to identify patterns
- Evidence Examination: Question the evidence for and against your thoughts
- Alternative Perspectives: Generate multiple explanations for events
- Behavioural Experiments: Test predictions through real-world actions
Professional Support in London
If cognitive distortions are affecting your mental health, working with a CBT therapist in London can provide structured support to challenge these patterns and develop healthier thinking habits.
