Common Cognitive Distortions
When a person experiences an unpleasant or unhelpful emotion, it is often preceded by unhelpful thoughts. Often there is a pattern to such thoughts – we call these unhelpful thinking errors or cognitive distortions.
Cognitive distortions are not unique to people with eating disorders, in fact everyone will use cognitive distortions to a greater or lesser degree. However when a person consistently and constantly uses these styles of thinking, they can cause themselves a great deal of emotional distress.
Common Unhelpful thinking styles:
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All or nothing thinking – you see things in black and white categories e.g. “If I’m not completely successful then I must be a failure”
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Overgeneralisation – you see a single negative event as an ongoing pattern of defeat e.g. “If I can’t keep this relationship going I’ll never be able to keep any relationship going”
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Mental filter – you pick out a single negative event and dwell on it exclusively e.g. remembering only the one thing you were told could be better, despite the many things that you were praised for
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Disqualifying the positive – you reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other e.g. “My friend gave me a compliment but they just feel sorry for me”
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Jumping to conclusions – you make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts. This can be ‘mind reading’ (assuming the thoughts and intentions of others) or ‘fortune-telling’ (anticipating the worst and taking it as fact) e.g. “People are staring at me because I am so fat” (mind reading) or “My boss wants to speak to me – I must have made a massive mistake and I’ll get the sack” (fortune telling).
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Magnification and minimisation – you exaggerate the importance of things e.g. your own mistake or someone else’s achievement; or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny e.g. your own desirable qualities or the other person’s imperfections
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Emotional reasoning – you assume that your negative emotions reflect a fact e.g. “I feel it, therefore it must be true”
What do I do next?
If you often find yourself falling into any of these patterns, it may be time to make some changes.
1. If you notice a big shift in mood, check whether you are using any of the cognitive distortions and make a note of it. See if any patterns develop over time.
2. Use questions to see if you can find an alternative, more balanced thought: Are you only noticing the bad? What is most likely to happen right now? Things aren’t black and white – there are shades of grey – where is this on the spectrum?
3. Practice challenging these ways of thinking whenever you can – this will help the new way of thinking become the new habit, and will help you distance yourself from the unhelpful thoughts.
