I'm currently doing a series on my TikTok channel about cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are often at the root of anxiety and depressive thoughts. They are thinking traps or thinking biases that lead us to interpret the actual events in the world in a way that leads us to feel anxious, sad, overwhelmed, frustrated, etc. The series this week is starting by introducing the common cognitive distortions. The first step in cognitive distortion work is being able to identify your cognitive distortions. Most people have their "favorites", the ones they use most often. People who suffer from anxiety, for example, often catastrophize. They often expect the worse possible outcome in situations and pour excessive energy into worrying about that outcome or preparing for that outcome. People who experience depressive symptoms often go through their day with "should statements" running through their mind: "I should be more like her." or "I should be able to manage a fulltime day and two kids better." Introducing cognitive distortions is important for a couple reasons. First, it helps clients not have to analyze and think through each thought and look for the error in their thinking. It provides a heuristic for identifying the error in their thinking. Second, and probably more important, it introduces the client to the process of observing their thoughts and thinking about their thoughts, a process we call metacognition.
Two questions arose in response to the introduction of cognitive distortions in my last video. First, why do we have cognitive distortions and second, if they are an accurate evaluation of the situation someone is in are they really distorted? First, cognitive distortions are the product of a mind that from an evolutionary perspective has developed to keep us safe. Scanning the environment for perceived threat and developing a way of thinking that overattributes threat in the environment would have worked to ensure our survival. An ancestor that saw a mountain lion and sat and observed its beauty or its power was not going to survive. The ancestor who could quickly evaluate the mountain lion as a threat and respond had a much better chance of survival. For us, nowadays, we are carrying around this incredible processing machine in our head that evolved in response to threat. The cognitive distortions often have at root of them an attempt to keep us safe, allowing us to respond very quickly to threat. The problem is that we are often responding to a threat that is not there. Let's return to catastrophizing. In response to catastrophizing, a person cognitively and physically responds to a catastrophe that has not happen and probably will not. A whole stress response is unnecessarily experienced, leading to narrowed focus, increased cortisol and its effects on the body etc. This brings us to the second question I received.
The second question is if your thoughts accurately reflect the environment are they distorted. The answer to that is complicated because of the word 'accurate'. Who's to judge what the accurate evaluation of a situation is. Without a doubt, if an individual is in a situation where they are experiencing trauma, cognitions that lead them to perceive threat are adaptive. In situations, where perceiving threat is an accurate representation and adaptive pattern of thinking, then an individual needs to get out of the situation. Those situations aside, the more important question about whether a cognitive distortion is distorted is a change of focus from is the cognition distorted to examining the impact of the thought. What is the emotional and behavioral response to the thought and are those adaptive and serving the individual? In the rest of the series this week, we are going to be looking at exactly that and learning how to take control of our emotional and behavioral responses to our cognitions. Follow me on TikTok this week to learn this process and how to deal with cognitions that induce feelings of anxiety, sadness, and stress.
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