Why is the Entire World Out to Get Me?? OR: What happens when we suffer from Cognitive Distortion.

Happy 2023, subscribers!

We make so many resolutions, often recycling the same ones. So, in honor of the most universal resolution: BE. NICER. TO. SELF! I'm resurrecting the most popular post from last year.

Let this be a reminder that being human is hard, and the antagonist in our head wants to make it even harder, but with luck, and persistence, we can name what plagues us, help make sense of where we're stuck, and push forward, toward MORE HAPPY.

Here's to vanquishing our individual and collective cognitive distortions in 2023!

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You’re having a nice evening, listening to NPR, maybe cooking dinner, when a promo for the Terry Gross show comes on, alerting listeners to an upcoming show heralding the arrival of yet another under-30 wunderkind writer, a genius talent of original wit, who has already won a MacArthur and a Guggenheim fellowship.

Your mind automatically switches from excited and curious to the B-side of the soundtrack of your life, and your ever-ready narrator begins THE VOICE OVER: 

You’ve never won a Guggenheim. And there’s zero chance you’ll win a ‘Genius’ grant. Who do you even think you are telling people that you’re a writer? What a goddamn fraud. You’ve spent the past decade screwing up your entire life, and now you’re too old—not to mention stupid— to even TRY to do what this wunderkind has done.

You should just stop trying and give up, move to another country and assume another identity, or just become an atrophied human sloth with no income because who cares?

 It’s all over; you might as well not even exist.

OR …

You’re having a nice stroll out with your dog, the sun is in full swagger, lapping up the day’s attention, and after weeks of stifling, stagnant weather, there’s finally a soft breeze.

You feel great. Your dog feels great. Everything is great. The world is a goddamn miracle.

You understand right now, in this very moment, how lucky you are to be alive, to have the life you have, to be the person you are when you casually glance in the window of a restaurant and see a man and a woman getting married, their loved ones wiping away tears, faces irradiating with love, when very suddenly THE VOICE OVER pipes in:

This happens to other people, but it will never happen to you. You will always look for what everyone else quickly finds, but you—nope. Do you know why you’ll never find love? Because you’re incapable. Inadequate.

The truth is, you are physically repulsive, too broken, too dysfunctional, and too unsuccessful for anyone to want to marry you.

Might as well stop showering altogether and wear your bathrobe outside.

Sound familiar?

This, my friends, has a name, and it’s called cognitive distortion.

This is your mind on cognitive distortion:

Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag

These thoughts are so automatic they’ve convinced you that they’re true. But these exaggerated perceptions are based entirely on fiction.

Cognitive distortion drops a colored lens over your eyeballs and leads you around, viewing everything in the monochromatic shade of blargh.

Everyone has these moments—it’s part of the human experience.

It happens most often when we’re feeling blue—just like everything else, it becomes problematic when you become stuck in its circularity. Believing your cognitive thoughts leads to negative thinking.

The truth is our thoughts impact how we feel about ourselves and how we behave. When we treat our negative thoughts as the Torah scroll of truth and abide by them, we convince ourselves of things that are neither helpful nor factual.

We live down to all the negative ideas we have of ourselves instead of living up to all the standards we’re too afraid to have.

In the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck—the father of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—was conducting research on depression treatment when he came up with the Theory of Cognitive Distortions. During interviews with depressed patients, he noticed themes and patterns threading throughout their stories.

Most notably, their perception of events was distorted and filtered through a lens of negativity and self-criticism. When relaying general or ambiguous situations, he observed his patients interpreting reality with a bias that they held against themselves.

All the patients isolated a single negative moment or detail and focused on it to the exclusion of everything else. And upon this moment, they placed their entire self-worth, experience, or performance.

They could not see, or they chose to ignore, the fuller, more objective picture. But the most distinguishing feature that linked all these cognitive distortions was the speed at which they occurred. Their first thought automatically linked their self-worth to the adverse event.

Beck called this “automatic thinking.”

Color Lithograph / Wellcome Collection

This way of thinking can be ruinous—it’s like trusting Goebbels to lead you to a safe space.

In the 1963 paper, “Thinking and depression: Idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions,” Beck identified five cognitive distortions. He added two more in “Cognitive Therapy of Depression,” published in 1979.

As you read the list of cognitive distortions below, notice that intrinsic to all styles is the glaring lack of consideration people give to more objective and probable explanations.

Aaron Beck’s Seven Cognitive Distortions

1. Arbitrary interpretation/arbitrary inference

Arbitrary interpretation is “the process of forming an interpretation of a situation, event, or experience when there is no factual evidence to support the conclusion or where the conclusion is contrary to the evidence.”

Example: As Paul watches the groups of people passing him by on his walk outside, he thinks, "Everyone can tell that I’m a loser who has no friends." This is distorted thinking because Paul cannot know what “everyone” is thinking. And, just as Paul is wrapped up in his self-concerns and point of view, so too are the people he passes. In other words, the chance these strangers are thinking about him is extremely low.

9 artworks depicting the brain. Sarah Grice.

2. Selective abstraction

Selective abstraction is “the process of focusing on a detail taken out of context, ignoring other more salient features of the situation, and conceptualizing the whole experience on the basis of this element.”

Example: Ted is performing onstage. The audience is joyful and laughing, all except one person. Ted focuses on this one audience member, ignoring the joy of all the others, and bases not just his performance but his experience of this performance on that one person. This thinking is distorted because Ted is excluding the positive reception of everyone else. His judgment of his performance does not match the evidence. (This is often referred to as mental filtering.)

3. Overgeneralization

Overgeneralization is the process of “drawing a general conclusion about their ability, performance, or worth on the basis of a single incident.”

Example: During gymnastics practice, Lucy loses her footing twice on the balance beam and falls off. This one momentary slip leads her to feel hopeless and think, "I’ll never be able to play sports competitively." Her mindset is distorted in this case because she’s reaching a broad conclusion without any evidence to the contrary. It is equally plausible that the third time will be the charm. Whenever someone says “always,” “never,” or “everything,” they are often in the stage of overgeneralizing.

4. Magnification and minimization

A woman dropping her porcelain tea-cup in horror upon discovering the monstrous contents of a magnified drop of Thames water; revealing the impurity of London drinking water. Coloured etching by W. Heath, 1828.

Magnification and minimization are “errors in evaluation which are so gross as to constitute distortions.” It’s when we exaggerate the importance of an adverse event that leads to an emotional response that is out of proportion to the offense.

Example of Magnification: Margaret wakes up the morning of her first date with Jane to discover a tiny pimple on the side of her cheek. Though she has covered it up as best she can, that night she is convinced that all Jane can see is her pimple and is therefore so disgusted by her that she’ll never go out with Margaret again.

She’s taking a small, inconsequential, negative detail and blowing its importance out of proportion. Other examples: Your sister is late calling you. You conclude that she’s died and you’ll never see her again. A small event leads to an out-of-control downward thought spiral.

Today we call this “Catastrophizing," or if you're in my apartment, we call it "Amanda Stern."

Original artwork by Edwina White

Example of Minimization: Wes’s friend is the third person to try to talk him out of getting another dog. In addition to having three cats and two birds that he can barely manage, his friends are concerned he is using the animals to avoid facing the more dysfunctional parts of his life. But Wes dismisses his friend’s concern, saying he knows what he’s doing and everyone is being dramatic.

5. Inexact labeling

Inexact labeling is where “the affective reaction is proportional to the descriptive labelling of the event rather than to the actual intensity of a traumatic situation.” When we apply labels to others, we can feel frustrated; when we apply them to ourselves we can feel depressed.

Example: A car cuts in front of Andrew’s on the highway. Andrew is furious and calls the person “an endless pile of f**ks.” His conclusion that the person who cut him off is an endless pile of f**ks is distorted because it is an exaggerated interpretation of what happened.

A more benign (and realistic) interpretation is that the other person was in a rush. Other examples: You’re “stupid” because you didn’t do well on a test. You didn’t match with someone on Tinder, so you’re “ugly.” When we assign labels based on one behavior or event, we engage in inexact labeling.

6. Personalization

Personalization is about “the patient’s proclivity to relate external events to himself when there is no basis for making such a connection.”

Example: Already late to school and rushing, Wendy races to the bus, which pulls away before she reaches it. She looks down to see that on the way to the bus, she has stepped in dog pooh, and now has to go home. Feeling deflated, she tearfully thinks, "The world has it in for me." Wendy has given the world all the power, placing herself at the center of its focus. She considers herself a target. Her thinking is a state of mind that will continue long after she changes her shoes.

Watercolor by M. Bishop, 1970

7. Absolutistic, dichotomous thinking

Absolutistic, dichotomous thinking is “the tendency to place all experiences in one of two opposite categories; for example, flawless or defective, immaculate or filthy, saint or sinner.”

Example: John wanted to marry his boyfriend until he did something he didn’t like, and then he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry him at all. This kind of thinking deals in extremes: You either love someone or hate them; your house is spotless until you see a sock on the floor and then it’s a pigsty. There is no room for nuance, or any allowance for complexity. (Today, we have a ton of names for this: all-or-nothing thinking, black-and-white thinking, concrete thinking, polarized thinking, stinkin' thinkin'—take your pick!)

Since Beck’s list of Cognitive Distortions, more have been added.

They are expansions of the existing ones, but use different terminology, and some may sound more familiar.

A cognitive distortion is like your personal brand of thinking—it’s got a spin, it’s subjective and it’s trying to sell you on something.

Certain styles of thinking lead to certain styles of feeling.

When we engage in all-or-nothing thinking, we are feeling anxious, and anxiety is a fear of uncertainty and the future.

So, all-or-nothing thinking can lead to unnecessary anxiety about the future. Discounting the positive is a depressive style of thinking. Depressive thinking comes from focusing too much on the past, ergo discounting the positive can lead to unnecessary depression about the past.

Try to notice whether you are feeling anxious or depressed the next time you fall into negative thinking. This can help you isolate what type of struggle you keep coming up against and will better guide your search for help.

Eyes expressing extreme emotion, from coldness to rage. Drawing, c. 1794. Wellcome Collection.

Dr. David Burns was an early student of Aaron Beck who has gone on to popularize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) by engaging readers with an approachable style to cognitive distortions.

In his comprehensive and generous book, Feeling Good, he draws a parallel between magicians and unhelpful thinking styles, “When you are depressed, you possess the remarkable ability to believe, and to get the people around you to believe, things which have no basis in reality.”

Here are David Burns' styles.

All or Nothing Thinking is the “tendency to evaluate your personal qualities in extreme, black-or-white categories.” Burns makes clear what we know but don't often acknowledge–there are very few things that are absolute in the world. Evaluating ourselves based on implausible criteria sets us up for failure, and is predicated upon an unrealistic set of standards.

Overgeneralization is when we believe that “one thing that happened to you once will occur repeatedly. When we overvalue overgeneralizations, we draw deeply painful conclusions, which is the source of our pain. This occurs when we go on one bad date and conclude: “I’ll be alone and miserable for the rest of my life.”

Counseling for social anxiety disorder, illustration. Jasmine Parker.

Try to notice whether you are feeling anxious or depressed the next time you fall into negative thinking. This can help you isolate what type of struggle you keep coming up against and will better guide your search for help.

Mental Filter is the process of isolating a negative detail and dwelling on it to the exclusion of all the positives, reducing an experience as negative.

Disqualifying the Positive happens when someone compliments you or something good happens to you at work, and you dismiss it, choosing instead to focus on why it’s not true. Example: Someone says: You look so pretty. You: "This old face? Look at all my wrinkles!" Burns suggests that this is a “spectacular mental illusion.” When we disqualify the positive, we are either ignoring positive information, dismissing it as an accident, or making excuses for why it doesn't count.

Jumping to Conclusions (mind-reading, the fortune teller error) this occurs when you make a decision based on what you assume a person is thinking. You’re so sure that you can anticipate someone else’s reactions that you don’t ever ask what a person is thinking or feeling. Example: When someone doesn’t text you back right away, you assume they’re mad at you.

Magnification & minimization occurs when you exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called the “binocular trick.”

Emotional reasoning when it comes to judging yourself and the world, you confuse feelings for facts. Example: "I feel like I wasn’t there for Esther yesterday when she needed me. This means I’m a terrible friend and person."

A man suffering from social anxiety disorder, illustration. Jasmine Parker.

“Should” statements this is when you have strict guidelines for how you or other people should and shouldn’t act. You’re hyper-vigilant about what others should or shouldn’t have done or said. Example: It’s your birthday, but an old friend of yours from college didn’t call you when you felt they should have because it’s the right thing to do. After all, YOU called THEM on their birthday.

Labeling and Mislabeling this is the process of tagging ourselves with a single identity: "I am a [label]." It's an extreme from of generalization, and it's biased. We are far too complex a species to be categorized with such simplicity. Just like feeling grief isn't contained to a single emotion, neither is our existence confined to a single category.

Personalization and blame this unhelpful thinking style leads one to “assume responsibility for a negative even when there is no basis for doing so. You arbitrarily conclude that what happened was your fault or reflects your inadequacy, even when you were not responsible for it” Burns argues that personalization leads to inappropriate guilt and shame.

Cognitive distortions are like nesting dolls of negative thoughts.

Each one seems like a reiteration of another, and it can be hard to keep track of what each one is called, but it is not hard to notice the AUTOMATIC nature our thoughts take when they jump from “He hasn’t called me yet” to “He’s dead, and I won’t survive life without him.”

We can get so inside our way of reading reality, that we create an entire world through a filter of cognitive distortion. When we suffer from inaccurate or distorted ways of reading situations, our emotions and behavior become problematic and disordered.

Our thoughts and perceptions influence the way we behave and feel.

When we think in unhelpful ways, we behave and feel in ways that hurt us.

One reason that we exaggerate our thoughts has to do with the environment in which we were raised. As children, we adapt our thinking and behavior to the messages we received from our caregivers, and we naturally assumed that others would behave toward us in exactly the same ways.

If you brought home an A- and one of your parents was always quick to ask why you didn't get an A, then you grew up in a highly critical environment, and this might lead you to grow into a person who believes that nothing you do will ever be good enough.

You will then take this style of thinking with you everywhere you go, and it can act as the lens through which you view all your interactions.

These early messages help form our core beliefs.

In other words, we base our assumptions about the rest of the world upon what was modeled for us when we were young.

Therefore, when we get an A- in the future, we will automatically assume that we're not as smart as the person who got an A. Our automatic thoughts are built on the scaffolding of inferred biases we developed as children. Another reason that we develop cognitive distortion is the idea that thinking itself was optimized for survival and not accuracy, this indicates that unhelpful styles of thinking may be evolutionary.

The best part about Cognitive Distortions is that there is an antidote: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

CBT helps people think in a more balanced way. It’s based on the theory that the way people read situations has more to do with their reactions (or overreactions) than to the situation itself. CBT helps train us to step back and look at the fuller picture.

To step outside our subjective and limited frame of reference and see things with more perspective and objectivity.

Once we identify how we’re cognitively distorting things, we can reframe and redirect our thoughts and be less impacted by our once-faulty way of reading the world.

We need to be flexible with how we use our minds. It’s like a viewfinder, and whatever we focus on becomes the world we live in. A flexible mind, unlike a fixed mind, can detach itself from anxious thinking. It allows for more breathing and less suffocation.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Until next week I am…

Amanda