Negative Thought Patterns, or Cognitive Distortions are irrational thought patterns, or biased ways of thinking, which can lead to mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, or relationship problems. Essentially, this can mean that the way you are thinking about something is different to the reality of what is happening.
They are important to understand as often they can lead to a negative loop of thoughts, causing a rapid downturn of mood, and can often happen subconsciously, leaving you in a bad mood.
Cognitive distortions often lie at the core of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) based treatments. Understanding these patterns can help in managing and understanding your mood. This page outlines and explores the most common 12 distortions.
List of Distortions
click on a distortion to learn more!
Everything has to fall into 2 categories - right or wrong.
You're only content with absolute perfection, or expect this from others.
Blowing a single negative event out of proportion, so that you see it in a long line of never-ending defeats.
Becoming fixated on a single bad thing that's happening, so that everything else gets ignored,
and your view becomes darkened.
Positive things that happen are dismissed, due to a belief that they don't count - leaving only negatives.
Drawing negative conclusions with little to no evidence of assumptions - often works through mind reading, or fortune telling.
Thinking that you know what someone else is thinking, often negatively, without any evidence.
Anticipating that things will turn out badly in the future, and you feel like this is a certain fact.
Exaggerating the gravity of a mistake you've made, or minimise positive things, such as your own positive traits.
Assuming that your negative emotions reflect how things actually are - 'I feel it, so it's true'.
Trying to motivate yourself with 'shoulds' and 'shouldn't', as if you have to force yourself to do something,
leading to guilty feelings when things don't work out.
An extreme form of overgeneralisation - an error leads you to label yourself: e.g. 'I'm a loser', or using highly emotional language.
Seeing yourself as the cause of negative events that you are not responsible for.