“A crucial characteristic of the cognitions with this content was that they represented varying degrees of distortion of reality. When Beck examined what his patients had told him he noticed themes in the cognitive content of the depressed patients and noted that: Some patients also kept notes of their feelings and thoughts between sessions which Beck used as additional data. The patients were encouraged to free associate (talk freely) and Beck’s policy was to intervene only minimally, taking notes as his patients spoke. The interviews were conducted when the patients were moderately to severely depressed. Part of Beck’s research in a psychiatric clinic involved conducting interviews with depressed patients whom he was seeing for psychotherapy. In the 1960’s he was conducting research into the treatment of depression. Beck was a psychiatrist who had also trained in psychoanalysis. Idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions’. How Beck identified cognitive distortionsĬognitive distortions in the context of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) were first described by Aaron Beck in his 1963 paper ‘Thinking and depression: 1. Recognizing and then overcoming our unhelpful thinking styles is frequently an important part of CBT treatment for anxiety and depression. There is strong evidence that people with depression and anxiety think in characteristically biased and unhelpful ways. But when unhelpful thinking styles are present in our lives to an excessive degree they are associated with poor mental health. None of us are 100% logical and rational like Mr Spock. She did this automatically and without realizing she had done it.Ĭognitive distortions are common, entirely normal, and not our fault. Jenny’s thinking process was distorted because she had managed to ignore all of the positive feedback she had received and focus solely on the negative. She couldn’t stop thinking about this one piece of negative feedback and criticized herself saying “I’m such a rubbish teacher”. When she looked at the feedback forms afterwards she noticed one form with critical comments and a poor rating. For example, Jenny delivered some teaching at her workplace and got a round of applause at the end as well as numerous colleagues telling her how well she did and how helpful they had found her presentation. It describes our tendency to focus on one detail, often taken out of context, and ignore other more important parts of an experience. They formed a central part of his cognitive theory of depression and, later, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).Ī good example of a cognitive distortion is what Beck originally called ‘selective abstraction’ but which is often now referred to as a ‘mental filter’. Cognitive distortions were first noted by Aaron Beck in his research with depressed patients in the 1960’s. Cognitive distortions happen automatically – we don’t mean to think inaccurately – but unless we learn to notice them they can have powerful yet invisible effects upon our moods and our lives. Sometimes we might jump to the worst possible conclusion, at other times we might blame ourselves for things that are not our fault. Different cognitive short cuts result in different kinds of bias or distortions in our thinking. Sometimes our brains take ‘short cuts’ and generate results that are not completely accurate. As conscious beings we are always interpreting the world around us, trying to make sense of what is happening. Cognitive distortions: an introduction to how CBT describes unhelpful ways of thinkingĬognitive distortions or ‘ unhelpful thinking styles’ are ways that our thoughts can become biased.
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