MANAGE FORTUNE TELLING THINKING ERROR

 


In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), there is a concept we call the Cognitive Triangle. The Cognitive Triangle suggests that our thoughts affect our behaviors, which in turn affect our feelings. These three aspects of the Cognitive Triangle are interconnected, so changing one of them can affect the other two. People often assume that it is the situation that causes us to feel a certain way, but, according to cognitive behavioral theory, it is actually our thoughts about the situation.

Look again at the example above. Tripping doesn’t make us feel embarrassed. It’s our thoughts about tripping that may. We might feel embarrassed if we think “I’m such a loser” but if we think “happens to the best of us” we might feel amused or have no strong feelings at all. Situations (like tripping in public) can give rise to thoughts that affect our feelings which in turn affect our behavior. These thoughts – called automatic thoughts – often flash through our head so quickly we don’t even realize we are having them. As such, it can be hard to catch the cognitive distortions, or thinking mistakes, these automatic thoughts often contain.

Automatic Thoughts, Intermediate Beliefs, and Core Beliefs

Cognitive distortions are thinking mistakes that – in excess – can lead to mental health problems like depression or anxiety. Cognitive distortions are quite common in both people with and without mental health problems. Most people make hundreds of errors in their thinking each day. They can become a problem, however, when the negative thoughts outweigh the positive ones and over time turn into firmly held pessimistic beliefs.

Cognitive distortions can occur on three different levels:

  • Automatic thoughts are the comments our internal voice makes throughout the day. They flash though our mind so quickly that we are often completely unaware of them, and yet, they can  influence our mood and behavior.
  • Intermediate beliefs represent the transition from persistent automatic thoughts to more crystallized assumptions about the self, world, and future.
  • Core beliefs are broad, stable, and firmly held beliefs about the self, world, and future, and, in depressed or anxious people, tend to be pessimistic.

An adolescent’s intermediate and core beliefs are often not yet crystallized as their “cognitive map” is still developing as they mature. But over time, these automatic thoughts can transition to intermediate and then core beliefs. This is a strong rationale for why it is helpful to teach kids how to identify and challenge thinking errors in their automatic thoughts early on before they can crystallize into negative core beliefs. Below are some common thinking mistakes to be on the lookout for (from Nguyen Williams & Crandal, 2015).

Common Thinking Mistakes

  • All-or-Nothing Thinking: Seeing things in black-and-white categories. When performance falls short of perfect, seeing the overall effort as a total failure. Seeing people as either all good or all bad.
  • Overgeneralization: Seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. Using terms such as “always” and “never” or “everyone” and “no one” usually indicate an overgeneralization.
  • Personalization: Seeing yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible.
  • Labeling: Instead of describing an error, a negative label is attached to the person: “I’m a loser.” “He’s stupid.”
  • Mental Filter: Picking out a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively so the vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
  • Disqualifying the Positive: Rejecting positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. Maintaining a negative belief that is contradicted by everyday experiences.
  • Jumping to Conclusions: Making a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support the conclusion.
    • Mind Reading: Concluding that someone is reacting negatively without evidence and without bothering to check it out.
    • The Fortune-Teller Error: Anticipating that things will turn out badly and feeling convinced that the prediction is an already established fact.


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