List examples of the cognitive distortions that you have

List examples of the cognitive distortions that you have

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March 9, 2022
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List examples of the cognitive distortions that you have held. What strategies did you use to cope with these cognitive errors? How well did the strategies work?

Answer and ExplanationSolution by a verified expert

Explanation
A cognitive distortion is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset and perpetuation of psychopathological states, especially those more influenced by psychosocial factors, such as depression and anxiety.

All cognitive distortions are tendencies or patterns of thinking or believing that are false or inaccurate and have the potential to cause psychological damage.

Some common cognitive distortions are as follows:

Dichotomous thinking: This distortion manifests as an inability or unwillingness to see shades of gray. In other words, one sees things in terms of extremes- something is either fantastic or awful, one believes he/she is either perfect or a total failure.
Overgeneralization: An error in thinking when an individual considers just one aspect, incident, or instance and generalises it to every situation.
Arbitrary inferences: The tendency to make conclusions and predictions based on little to no evidence, and holding onto them as gospel truth.
Selective abstractions: Jumping to conclusions based on an isolated detail of an event.
Personalization: As the name implies, this distortion involves taking everything personally or assigning blame on oneself without any logical reason.
Aron Beck developed the basis for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT, when he noticed that most of his patients struggling with depression were operating on false assumptions and distorted thinking. He connected these distorted thinking patterns with his patients' symptoms, and hypothesized that changing their thinking could change their symptoms. Some of the ways he suggested in his therapy included re-attributing the beliefs, and disputing them by weighing them against real evidence.

With respect to the second part of the question:

Evidence for the first possibility is as follows:
The strategies used by the individual have been found to be effective because they work, as they recognize faulty thinking patterns and directly target them instead of enhancing the mood or taking an indirect route to improve the errors in cognition. They have also been backed by years of research and therefore might have worked well.
Evidence for the second possibility is as follows:
As distorted thinking patterns develop and manifest over an individual's lifespan it is not easy to challenge or dismantle the irrational beliefs, as the individual has become habituated to such a thought pattern over the years. Also, changing the way an individual thinks is an inherently effortful process. Therefore, most people attempt to redefine or dispute the beliefs only for shorter periods and then give up. These are some of the reasons why the strategies might not have worked well for the individual.
Sample Response
Some common cognitive distortions that an individual may experience include dichotomous thinking, overgeneralization, personalization, selective abstraction, and arbitrary inferences.

Strategies against cognitive distortions:

Reattribution: Identifying external factors, and other individuals that contributed to the problem or event.
Redefining: An examination of global labels such as 'loser' may reveal that they do not define the whole person just one of many traits.
Disputing: Pitching the irrational belief against reality on the basis of actual evidence can be a good way to dismantle it.

With respect to the second part of the question, there can be two possibilities:

The strategies worked well.
The strategies did not work well.
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