The Eyes see what the Mind knows: Cognitive Distortions
Introduction
The eyes see only what the mind knows and more often than not, we may become victims of our own minds, our own perceptions because of several reasons like our limited knowledge, distressing experiences and memories, need to feel safe and in control or simply a refusal to accept the reality as it is. Hence we develop some mental mechanisms to deal with our reality. One such mechanism is called cognitive distortion, a term used by mental health professionals for a set of automatic thoughts that pop up between the external events and one’s reaction to them; a core process in a multitude of psychological disorders.
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Imagine a situation
where we see our friends conversing with each other but cannot hear what they
are talking about (so we have limited information). The logical and rational
response in such a situation will be to ask them what they were talking about.
However, on the
backdrop of any anxiety disorder, let’s say social anxiety, the automatic
thought that may pop is ‘I must have looked like a fool. They must be talking
and laughing at me’. Now, they may be having a random conversation, unrelated to
us but once this automatic thought has biased
our interpretation of the situation, our anxiety is bound to increase and
our usual response will be avoiding them in order to relieve our anxiety (in
the short-term).
As you can see from the above picture, cognitive distortions are like mental filters which help us process information rapidly and guide our behaviours that reduce our anxiety in the short-term, but in the long run, these same thoughts and behaviours can become the source of our persistent and prolonged distress and perpetuate our anxiety, instead of relieving it.
Cognitive triad
These can be found in various
psychological disorders, ranging from depression, anxiety disorders, substance
use disorders, personality disorders to interpersonal relationship issues,
parenting challenges, stress and many more domains.
For example, the cognitive triad
in depression will look something like this:
1 Jumping to Conclusion: As the name suggests, we tend to
conclude in absence of supporting evidence, sometimes even when contrary facts
is present.
2. Overgeneralization: Making a rule-of-thumb based on limited experience and apply this rule to all situations.
3 Magnification and Minimization: Subjective tendencies of giving “weights” or importance to negative events and play down positive events.
4. All-or-None Thinking: The tendency to
oversimplify situations into ‘black or white’ or ‘either/or’ without
considering any other possibilities.
Diminished capacity of Metacognition: Metacognition literally means to think about thinking and is one of the hallmarks of higher-order thinking. It is the ability to objectively view our own thoughts or our behaviours like asking ourselves ‘How did I reach such a conclusion?’ or ‘Why did I behave in such a way?’.
Mindfulness for Cognitive Distortions
In many psychological disorders, there is a deficiency of metacognition. One of the core mindfulness principles is our ability to observe or being aware our thoughts in an open, non-judgmental way. So we learn to take a step back from our thoughts, instead of getting caught up in our minds.
For example, if we have some disappointment
on our work front and the automatic thought pops up ‘I am a failure’, with
mindfulness skills we observe the thought as a momentary and natural reaction,
rather than a statement to define our entire professional career.
We pause and evaluate our
thoughts mindfully, in a non-judgmental way before responding to any situation.
This helps with metacognition so that we are able to reflect on our
thoughts before reacting, rather than acting like an autopilot under
automatic thoughts.
-Dr. Suhasini Das
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