The next group of cognitive distortions we’ll review are the faulty thoughts that have a negative foundation. Similar to my last post, we’ll list the distortion, then identify a few ways on how to attack those negative thoughts.
Labeling
Labeling is simply the act of describing ourself or someone else negatively. For example, we might label someone as “stupid,” “disrespectful,” “horrible,” etc. Although someone’s behavior may be classified as one of these adjectives, that does not mean that person is “horrible” to the core. Here, we are not seeing the person as separate from his/her behavior. Imagine if everyone assigned us a negative label every time we didn’t act our best. There would be no room for error or mistakes to be made.
This cognitive distortion makes it difficult to move past these poor behaviors. It also skews our view of ourself or the other person. With this in mind, it’s not hard to see how this could negative impact our relationship with ourself and/or others.
When we describe ourself or others negatively, we often seek out incidents that support that negative bias. Cutting through this distortion and using these descriptions for behaviors has benefits. It allows us the opportunity to have just as many positives and seek out information that supports those positive labels as well.
The best way to cue yourself into this cognitive distortion is when you use a negative adjective to describe someone. This is used in place of describing that person’s actual behavior. For example, “I’m so stupid.” This is very different than “That was not a great decision.” In the first, we are identifying as all negative. However, in the second, we are simply using that as a description for a behavior, not as a whole.
The next time you do something you consider negative, try describing only your behavior and not yourself as a person. If you try and occasionally become successful with this, it can help improve your self-esteem and decrease depressive symptoms. The same goes for others; you’ll likely notice less resentment and frustration with others if you are able to separate them from their behaviors.
Discounting the Positives
Discounting the positives is another cognitive distortion that is negative at its core. Here, we essentially note the positive, but then dismiss it for any number of reasons. For example, “I got the job, but the company is so desperate, they’d hire anyone right now.” This statement does acknowledge the positive (getting the job), but then immediately disregards it as unimportant.
I like to refer to this distortion as the “yeah, but” distortion. When we have a conversation with someone and they give a complement and then say “but,” it feels like they’ve just taken away that complement. The “but” makes it sound like anything they said before that doesn’t matter. For example, even something as small as “I like those pants, but they are too short” doesn’t feel very positive. Instead, it ends with the negative statement. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear, “I like those pants” and that’s it. The same goes for my first example of the job. Instead of “I got the job, but…” simply stating “I got the job” is all that’s necessary.
What can clue you in to this cognitive distortion is definitely the word “but.” Once you hear that, pay attention to see what you said before that. Then, as yourself if that “but” was actually necessary.
After reading this, I’d like to challenge you to be on the lookout for this distortion and try to hold back the “but” and anything you’d say after that. See how it feels to just acknowledge the positives without regularly dismissing them with something negative. I think both you and any others in the conversation will notice that it’s a much more pleasant interaction.
Negative Filter
There is a key difference between this cognitive distortion and discounting the positives. The negative filter distortion does not recognize any positives at all. For example, “The company is so desperate, they’ll hire anyone.” Here, we didn’t even acknowledged the job offer.
Overall, this distortion is when you look at most things while wearing a negative pair of glasses. There’s no positive spin. Often, it’s difficult to identify positives, even when asked to look for them. However, we can find positives in almost any situation.
Even though we can usually find positives, challenging this distortion does not involve sugar-coating anything. Rather, it simply means identifying the facts and evidence on both sides, not just the negative. For example, when someone passes away, it’s often difficult and very sad, but a positive might be that they are no longer suffering. Getting fired from a job may be positive in any of the following ways:
- We were unhappy anyway
- Now we get to spend more time with our family
- We get to take the break we very much needed
- It’s an opportunity to try something new
None of these sugar-coat the situation. Instead they look at the opportunities the job loss presents.
Overgeneralizing
When we overgeneralize, we distort a single incident into a pattern of behaviors. Most often, this is going to have a negative foundation and bring about unpleasant emotions or reactions. For example, when getting rejected from a job interview, we might think “This is usually the outcome,” or “I get rejected from a lot of things.”
We can easily see how this would lead to negative emotions by not seeing the reality of the situation. Perhaps this is only my first or second rejection. The goal here is to scale back how much we are taking that single incident (rejection) and viewing it as our usual outcome. We challenge this by looking at the evidence and the data. How many times has it happened compared to how many times we had a different outcome. For example, I’ve gotten rejected twice, but I’ve been offered many more jobs than that. The idea is that we want to break apart the pattern that this is “common” for us and see that it is, in fact, infrequent. We need to use the facts to identify the pattern and not just our thoughts.
All-or-Nothing Thinking
This cognitive distortion has many different names. All-or-nothing thinking, dichotomous thinking, black-and-white thinking, etc. However, they all indicate the same thing. We see things in terms of extremes. The core of this distortion is struggling to see the gray area on the continuum that is where a majority of life exists. Key words to identify this distortion include:
- Always
- Never
- Everyone
- No one
These words cue us in to the idea that we are on one end of the continuum or the other. This distortion can be found in thoughts that don’t include these words also, such as “It was a waste of my time.” This indicates that the entire event was wasteful and not one single moment was fun or beneficial. Again, this type of thinking often leaves us in a negative emotional state.
Once we’ve identified it, we want to look at how our language may be a bit extreme and things are not quite as black-and-white as we are indicating. For example, if I have an interview and don’t get the job. I may think “that was a waste of my time.” However, even thought I didn’t get the job, was the entire experience a waste? Likely not. I obtained more interview practice, maybe experienced a new type of interview question, or got some valuable feedback.
This distortion is a bit more extreme than overgeneralizing and can often have a bit of a negative filter feel as well.
Challenging Cognitive Distortions
As mentioned in my previous blogs about cognitive distortions, these thoughts can be challenged. However, we must first identify them as faulty thoughts. Therefore, once you’ve done the work of picking them out, you can use the type of distortion to figure out how to challenge them. I’ve briefly mentioned in the above sections how to do this. You may also need to use more than one challenge strategy, because many distorted thoughts can fall into more than one of the distortion categories. This actually provides an opportunity to challenge them from different angles. However, if you continue to notice your faulty thinking and struggle to move past it, seek out professional help. Someone who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy, or cognitive therapy, will likely be able to provide more in-depth training on the skills necessary to challenge these thoughts and reduce the negative emotions.
