Cognitive distortions are exaggerated and irrational thoughts identified in cognitive therapy

Cognitive therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...

 and its variants, which in theory perpetuate certain psychological disorders. The theory of cognitive distortions was first proposed by Aaron T. Beck

Aaron T. Beck

Aaron Temkin Beck is an American psychiatrist and a professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is widely regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, and his pioneering theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression...

. Eliminating these distortions and negative thoughts is said to improve mood and discourage maladies such as depression

Clinical depression

Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 and chronic anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...

. The process of learning to refute these distortions is called "cognitive restructuring

Cognitive restructuring

Cognitive restructuring, sometimes used synonymously with Debating, is the process of learning to identify irrational or maladaptive thoughts and challenge their veracity using strategies such as logical disputation....

".

Examples

Many cognitive distortions are also logical fallacies; related links are suggested in parentheses.

• All-or-nothing thinking (splitting)
  Splitting (psychology)
  Splitting may mean two things: splitting of the mind, and splitting of mental concepts . The latter is thinking purely in extremes Splitting (also called all-or-nothing thinking in cognitive distortion) may mean two things: splitting of the mind, and splitting of mental concepts (or black and...
  
  – Conception in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative". (See also "false dilemma
  False dilemma
  A false dilemma is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options...
  
  " or "false dichotomy".)
• Overgeneralization – Extrapolating limited experiences and evidence to broad generalizations. (See also faulty generalization
  Faulty generalization
  A fallacy of defective induction reaches a conclusion from weak premises. Unlike fallacies of relevance, in fallacies of defective induction, the premises are related to the conclusions yet only weakly buttress the conclusions. A faulty generalization is thus produced...
  
   and misleading vividness
  Misleading vividness
  Misleading vividness is a term that can be applied to anecdotal evidence describing an occurrence, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, with sufficient detail to permit hasty generalizations about the occurrence...
  
  .)
• Magical thinking
  Magical thinking
  Magical thinking is causal reasoning that looks for correlation between acts or utterances and certain events. In religion, folk religion, and superstition, the correlation posited is between religious ritual, such as prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or...
  
  - Expectation of certain outcomes based on performance of unrelated acts or utterances. (See also wishful thinking
  Wishful thinking
  Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality...
  
  .)
• Mental filter – Inability to to view positive or negative features of an experience, for example, noticing only tiny imperfection in a piece of otherwise useful clothing.
• Disqualifying the positive – Discounting positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons.
• Jumping to conclusions – Reaching conclusions (usually negative) from little (if any) evidence. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
  • Mind reading – Sense of access to special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.
  • Fortune telling – Inflexible expectations for how things will turn out before they happen.
• Magnification
  Exaggeration
  Exaggeration is a representation of something in an excessive manner. The exaggerator has been a familiar figure in Western culture since at least Aristotle's discussion of the alazon: 'the boaster is regarded as one who pretends to have distinguished qualities which he possesses either not at all...
  
  and minimization
  Minimisation (psychology)
  Minimisation is a type of deception involving denial coupled with rationalisation in situations where complete denial is implausible. It is the opposite of exaggeration....
  
  – Magnifying or minimizing a memory or situation such that they no longer correspond to objective reality. This is common enough in the normal population to popularize idioms such as "make a mountain out of a molehill
  Make a mountain out of a molehill
  Making a mountain out of a molehill is an idiom referring to over-reactive, histrionic behaviour where a person makes too much of a minor issue.-Metaphor:...
  
  ." In depressed clients, often the positive characteristics of other people are exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of magnification:
  • Catastrophizing – Inability to foresee anything other than the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or experiencing a situation as unbearable or impossible when it is just uncomfortable.
• Emotional reasoning – Experiencing reality as a reflection of emotions, e.g. "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
• Should statements – Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought" to be rather than the actual situation the person is faced with, or having rigid rules which the person believes will "always apply" no matter what the circumstances are. Albert Ellis termed this "Musturbation".
• Labeling
  Labeling theory
  Labeling theory is closely related to interactionist and social construction theories. Labeling theory was developed by sociologists during the 1960's. Howard Saul Becker's book entitled Outsiders was extremely influential in the development of this theory and its rise to popularity...
  
   and mislabeling – Limited thinking about behaviors or events due to reliance on names; related to overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, the person assigns a label to someone or himself that implies absolute and unalterable terms. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
• Personalization – Attribution
  Attribution (psychology)
  Attribution is a concept in social psychology referring to how individuals explain causes of behavior and events. Attribution theory is an umbrella term for various theories that attempt to explain these processes. Fritz Heider first proposed a theory of attribution The Psychology of Interpersonal...
  
   of personal responsibility (or causal role or blame
  Blame
  Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, making negative statements about an individual or group that their action or actions are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for doing something wrong their action is blameworthy...
  
  ) for events over which a person has no control
  Illusion of control
  The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events, for instance to feel that they control outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over. The effect was named by psychologist Ellen Langer and has been replicated in many different contexts. It...
  
  .

Narcissistic rage

Narcissistic rage is directed towards the person that the narcissist feels has slighted them; to other people, the rage is incoherent and unjust. This rage impairs their cognition, therefore impairing their judgment

Judgment

A judgment , in a legal context, is synonymous with the formal decision made by a court following a lawsuit. At the same time the court may also make a range of court orders, such as imposing a sentence upon a guilty defendant in a criminal matter, or providing a remedy for the plaintiff in a civil...

. During the rage they are prone to shouting, fact distortion and making groundless accusations

False accusations

False accusations can be in any of the following contexts:* informally in everyday life* quasi-judicially* judicially.-Types:...

.

See also