Beginners guide to unhelpful thoughts: Part 1
What are unhelpful thoughts?
Unhelpful thoughts, sometimes called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) or cognitive distortions, are thoughts that generally focus on the negative, what went wrong, or how things can’t change. These thoughts are important because they can significantly shape how we see ourselves and the world. For some, these thoughts can be irrational or lead to distorted perceptions of reality. Which sounds extreme, but often, we aren’t even aware that we’re engaging in these kinds of thoughts, they just happen. Think of it this way, you don’t wake up one morning and think “I really want to focus on all the worst case scenarios”.
So what does an unhelpful thought look like? There are many kinds of unhelpful thoughts. If you were to google “unhelpful thoughts”, “automatic negative thoughts”, or “cognitive distortions”, you would come across hundreds of lists naming a variety of different thought patterns. The answer is, there is no one definitive list of what these unhelpful thought patterns are. In my work, there are usually 12 I like to teach to my clients. We’ll dive into three of them today and stay tuned for future blog posts where I will talk through the rest of them.
Why do we have unhelpful thoughts?
As humans, we tend to have a negativity bias and focus more on negative information more than on positive information. Sometimes, when we’re stressed or tired, these negative thoughts are less work for our brain than coming up with more positive alternatives.
However, it’s important to note that for some, unhelpful thoughts were actually useful at one point in time. Take someone, let’s call them Alex, living in a house with a partner who yells at them. Alex might try to predict what their partner is thinking and act on those predictions as a way to prevent the yelling and keep themselves emotionally safe. Or maybe Alex develops automatic thoughts of self-blame as a way to defuse situations. In this case, the negativity bias actually serves a purpose of keeping Alex emotionally or even physically safe. It’s when we are out of these situations but still engaging in the thought patterns that these thoughts typically become unhelpful, or even problematic.
Why do unhelpful thoughts matter?
Having unhelpful thoughts is part of being human. We all engage in them from time to time. However, when we engage in these kinds of thought patterns frequently, they can start to distort our perceptions of reality- we really begin to believe we aren’t good enough or that the elevator will break. These thoughts can interfere with our ability to engage in life, form healthy connections or even feel happy. Unhelpful thoughts are also common with anxiety. Like peanut butter and jelly, anxiety and unhelpful thoughts often go hand in hand. So when we’re looking at ways to reduce anxiety, it’s important to take a good hard look at our unhelpful thought patterns.
3 types of unhelpful thoughts
Catastrophizing
When we catastrophize, we are coming up with the worst case scenario. This is when we overestimate the chances of something bad happening or exaggerate potential negative outcomes. Often when this type of thinking occurs, we forget about any other possible outcomes and focus solely on this one negative outcome regardless of how likely or unlikely it is.
Examples of catastrophizing:
"If I don't do well on this project, I will be a failure and I will lose my job."
“If I don’t get an A on this test, I won’t graduate high school.”
"My partner is late getting home from work, maybe they got in a car crash.”
Jumping to conclusions
Jumping to conclusions, also called mind-reading or fortune-telling, is when we make assumptions about what will happen or what others are thinking. Often, we aren’t even aware that we’re making an assumption, we just take our prediction as fact. This can be a tricky one to identify because we likely all have people in our lives that we know well enough where we can predict how they might respond. And this can even be helpful at times. It’s usually when we do this constantly and incorrectly, that it starts to become a problem.
Examples of jumping to conclusions:
“My friend hasn’t texted me back yet, they must be mad at me.”
"My boss hasn't responded to my email, they think I'm not good at my job."
“There’s no point in telling my partner I’m frustrated because they’ll just get defensive and nothing will change.”
Focusing on the negative
When we focus on the negative or discount the positive, we are singling out one negative experience and dwelling on it. This is sometimes called a mental filter or minimization. This kind of thinking becomes a problem when there really are positives that we just aren’t focusing on. However, when we engage in this thinking, we usually have a hard time seeing any of the positives. It takes practice to focus on the positive events and experiences.
Examples of focusing on the negative:
"I spilled coffee on myself, today was horrible" and you don’t focus on all the other things that did go well today.
"My boss criticized me today, they only ever have negative feedback”. You don’t think about any of the times you received positive feedback.
You make a mistake one time and think, “I can’t do anything right”.
