More about thought distortions that trap thoughts and create suffering (1 minute read)

This post “More about thought distortions that trap thoughts and create suffering” continues with how you can manage anxiety by understanding thought traps.

There are many anxiety inducing patterns often called cognitive distortions or thought traps. These are ways of thinking that seem true but are in fact not reasonable, realistic or relevant to the situation.

Noticing when we are using thought traps and countering them is an important part of traditional CBT-exercises that also can reduce symptoms of anxiety.

Cognitive restructuring is a popular form of therapy within the popular cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, used to identify and challenge maladaptive cognitive distortions/thought traps, see the post of last week for how this is done.

A cognitive distortio​n is active in our minds when we experience an upsetting event and we think about it in these ways. It is important to identify these patters so that we do not get stuck in these.

Also, they tend to create a negative and reinforcing pattern of feeling bad about ourselves.1

This often lead to lower self-esteem and a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the expectations and logic they portray.

Cognitive distortions can be undone, but it takes effort and lots of practice, often every day.

It is helpful to look through all the possible techniques to challenge these distortions in an effort to find the ones that is the most helpful for you.

More about this in the next post on this topic.

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Also, see these user-friendly medical research databases:

The world’s largest government funded medical library: www.nlm.nih.gov

Johns Hopkins University: www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Harvard University: www.health.harvard.edu

Oxford university: http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/