Cognitive distortions: how much does identifying them help?

[FilmWatcher]

I’ve done a lot of work trying to identify cognitive distortions, weigh pros/cons of certain beliefs I have, and examine the evidence for negative thoughts or beliefs.

In my experience, this does help a little bit but only when I’m already feeling a little better. When I’m in the pits of being depressed and even brushing my teeth feels like work, these CBT strategies also feel like too much work. When I do manage to do one, they are less effective anyway.

What are your experiences with this? Have certain strategies helped you more than others?

[Jillsmom28]

Yeah, simple tasks take on monumental proportions. I too use CBT and EMDR, but when I am in the pit, it doesn't seem to help much. Best of luck to you.

[scansnap]

An interesting question. I have had the same experience. I think it is important that you actually write down or at least dictate onto a phone your thoughts and that you go through the daily thought record completely and complete it. Just thinking about your distortions, or even rethinking them in your head does not often provide sufficient processing of the information. You really do have to do the homework to get the results. When you are finished, you will ideally feel that you have changed your belief. If you do not, then you have to ask yourself what is it that you’re thinking underneath that thought that is keeping you from believing it. After you do daily thought records for a while, you will find certain underlying beliefs that are more generally true about yourself and your situation, which then need to be addressed.

[CLB1125]

I don’t know what this is. Could you explain it to me, please?

[FilmWatcher in reply to CLB1125]

Cognitive distortions are thoughts or beliefs a person may have that are probably not true. For depressed and anxious people they likely make symptoms worse, so the idea is to work on noticing when one arises to combat it.

An example of this is mind reading: After an interaction with someone, you may automatically assume that it went poorly or they don’t like you, but they gave no indication of thinking that. If someone is rude at the grocery store you may assume it’s because of you, when in reality they were just having a bad day.

I’m not sure if posting links is acceptable on this forum but Healthline has a good article on some of these. It’s titled: “What Are Cognitive Distortions and How Can You Change These Thinking Patterns?”

Hope this helps.

[CLB1125]

thank you