How to Recognize and Remedy Cognitive Distortions

Our mind is still a mystery. It has more memory than many computers. It can sort through billions of images, memories, and thoughts in a person’s lifetime. Through these images, memories, and thoughts, a person develops opinions and emotional reactions. As a person forms opinions and emotional reactions, he or she behaves in a certain way and creates certain physiological responses.

How cognitive distortions work

Medical and mental health professionals have learned many things about our brains. From this knowledge, technological and medical advances have been made over the last one hundred years. Medication companies have developed new medications to treat a variety of neurological and mental health issues. Yet, there is so much more to learn.

Even though many things are still unknown about the human brain, some things have been thoroughly researched and proven. For example, humans struggle with believing everything they think. As a result, it leads to cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are biased perspectives based on our thoughts, images, and memories.

They distort the view of ourselves, other people, and our future. Over the last sixty to seventy years, researchers, like Aaron T. Beck, have found a link between cognitive distortions and a variety of mental health issues (depression, anxiety, substance use, bipolar, schizophrenia, eating disorders, personality disorders, and a litany of other mental health disorders).

Because the average human has ten thousand thoughts a day, the brain needs a way to reduce the information without creating mental overload. Thus, our brains develop the necessary shortcuts to process thoughts, images, and memories in a split-second. Nevertheless, the trade-off of rapid information processing increases the chances of faulty thinking.

Cognitive distortions are not developed overnight. They are unwittingly strengthened over time. Although they appear normal, they are erroneous patterns of beliefs that have the potential to create mental health disorders as described above. Unless a person is specifically trained, it can be hard to distinguish them from everyday rational thoughts. However, even trained professionals are susceptible to cognitive distortions.

Cognitive distortions are pervasive

No one is perfect, and everyone has misinterpreted information, so cognitive distortions are unavoidable. It is common to place global labels on individuals like calling someone an idiot. Everyone has become frustrated with others not doing what they should do. All of us have based our thinking on our gut reactions and have been wrong. Everyone has blown things out of proportion. Everybody has overgeneralized and reached incorrect conclusions.

Although some individuals are better than others at identifying and challenging their mistaken beliefs, cognitive distortions still create ripple effects. The ripple effects can affect other individuals connected to the person struggling with a cognitive distortion.

For example, a wife becomes frustrated with her husband, because she believes he can read her mind and know what she is thinking. As a result, the husband reacts to his wife with unkind words.

Cognitive distortions spread like a virus. Because they are subtle and unavoidable, it is easy for one person with a cognitive distortion to trigger a cognitive distortion in another person. Referring to the example in the previous paragraph, the wife engages in mind reading.

As a result, she becomes frustrated with her husband when he fails to meet her expectations (to do the thing he “should do”). Because the husband has seen his mother arguing with his father numerous times, the husband developed the inaccurate belief that “All women nag all the time” and reacted with unkind words to his wife.

Cognitive distortions skew reality like a pair of beer goggles. Beer goggles are used by educators to demonstrate the effects of drunk driving. An individual with a cognitive distortion inadvertently warps reality.

Using the husband-wife example above, the wife assumes that her husband knows her thoughts because they are married. The husband applies his parents’ example of arguing frequently to his own marriage and makes a blanket statement that all women are nags. Both are incorrect in their thinking.

Individuals treat cognitive distortions like the gospel truth, becoming entrenched as they vigorously defend their erroneous beliefs as fact. The wife-husband example illustrates how cognitive distortions affected the couple’s relationship. Both defended their positions without any resolution. Likewise, individuals become trapped in their own minds as they repeat their mistaken beliefs to themselves.

Cognitive distortions grow like a weed. Farmers and gardeners view weeds as a bane of their existence. Birds drop weed seeds from the air. Fertilized from bird excrement, weeds grow deep into the ground where their roots spread out. They choke and crowd out other plants.

Weeds are hard to uproot once they are established. Similarly, cognitive distortions are deeply rooted. Other thoughts are dismissed if they are inconsistent with the cognitive distortion. Over time, a mental health professional is required to uproot these cognitive distortions.

As alluded to above, cognitive distortions are like a videotape playing continuously. You will appreciate this next illustration if you have siblings or young children. My sisters watched the movie Dirty Dancing (1987) twenty times over a weekend as teenagers.

Because there were only two VCRs in our house, my sisters would play this movie, rewind it, and watch it over again. They loved it so much that they even quoted it. If you were a teenage brother, you would have developed a cognitive distortion where you labeled your sisters as “annoying.”

Our thoughts work similarly. It plays images and memories in our minds repeatedly. Our brains filter out certain details and remember other details. As stated above, these thoughts can be distorted like a warped video tape of Dirty Dancing.

We are creatures of habit

We play this warped videotape in our brains, but it should be asked why this type of thinking even exists. There are several answers to this question: Humans are creatures of habit even if the habit is unhealthy. We crave structure even if it is dysfunctional.

We are accustomed to a certain routine even if it is destructive. It makes sense to us even if it is illogical to everyone else. We don’t know any better because no one taught us. It is in our nature because we learned it from others.

Applying these answers to real-life situations, individuals abuse substances despite dire legal, social, and medical consequences. Battered women remain married to abusive men because it provides them with structure. Those with obsessive-compulsive disorder routinely wash their hands until they bleed.

People with generalized anxiety disorder worry about everything even though it serves little to no purpose. Children throw temper tantrums because they have not learned how to express their feelings. Constantly telling a child that he or she is worthless leads them into adulthood with the belief of worthlessness.

Because our minds trick us into believing false things about ourselves, others, and our futures, the next question becomes how to overcome these cognitive distortions. Some initial steps are to pray about your thinking patterns and read the Scriptures. The Bible says that we are to have the same mindset as Christ (Romans 15:5; Philippians 4:7). Throughout the Gospels Jesus modeled prayer by praying to His Father because He knew where his authority came from.

By relying on Jesus, we can do all things (Philippians 4:13). If we are unable to do things, we know that he is able “to do more than [we] all ask[ed] or imagine [d]” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV). We also know that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). Like Adam and Eve, he continues to deceive people every day. Thus, the apostle Paul advises us to renew our minds daily and test our thoughts (Romans 12:2).

Uprooting cognitive distortions

Because cognitive distortions are subtle and unavoidable, it is important to search for them constantly. Doing an internet search, one can easily find cognitive distortions. Because it is hard to distinguish between truth and our biased thinking, working together with mental health professionals can help us learn to identify them.

Because cognitive distortions grow like a weed, it takes a lot of practice and effort to uproot them. If cognitive distortions were easy to uproot, everyone would identify them immediately and would not rent headspace to them. Furthermore, mental health professionals would be unemployed, and mental illness would not exist.

As described above, cognitive distortions lead to a plethora of mental illnesses. They can be tricky to replace with more balanced and reality-based thinking by yourself. It is difficult to overcome years of unhelpful thinking.

Seeking help from a mental health professional is important to guide you through this process of replacing these troublesome patterns of thinking. Because everyone experiences cognitive distortions, you can contact our office at Spokane Christian Counseling without the stigma of judgment. In the meantime, do not believe everything you think!