How To Use Cognitive Reframing To Change The Way You Think

Have you ever found yourself feeling as though you’ll never do anything right, or that your poor performance at a single event means you’re destined to fail? If you have, you’re not alone in good company. This type of negative or distorted thinking is called cognitive distortions, and most people experience them on occasion. 

Cognitive distortions can have a significant big impact on your mental health, but once you’ve recognized them, you can start to challenge them. At first, it’s recommended that you work with a therapist who practices cognitive therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, but you can also work on cognitive reframing on your own. You can practice cognitive reframing strategies like looking for reasonable alternatives, using Socratic questioning techniques, or making a thought record to develop healthier thought patterns and improve your wellbeing. 

Common cognitive distortions

Most, if not all, people experience cognitive distortions (negative thinking, biases, and filters that are not based on fact) from time to time. For example, have you ever thought you did terribly on a project, only to receive praise from your boss? 

That’s one of several common distortions. 

Others include: 

• Overgeneralizations

Overgeneralizations happen when you believe that the experience from one situation will apply to another. For example, if you got a rejection letter from a college you applied to, you might think that you’ll get rejected from every college. Or if your crush rejects you, you might think you’ll never find a partner. 

• Catastrophizing

When you catastrophize, you jump to the worst possible conclusion. For example, if your spouse doesn’t come home on time, you might worry that they got into a terrible car accident. Or, if you got an abnormal result on a medical screening, you might worry that you’re going to die. 

• Filtering

Filtering is the mental process of filtering out the positives and focusing solely on the negatives. For example, if your work is repeatedly praised, but you receive one piece of constructive criticism, you may be left fixating on the criticism. 

• Discounting positives

When something positive happens, people who discount positives will tend to dismiss it. For example, if someone gives you a compliment, you may believe they were just trying to be nice. Or if you get positive praise for your research on a work project, you might believe you just got lucky. 

• All-or-nothing thinking

All-or-nothing thinking is thinking that there are only two possible outcomes: success or failure. This type of thinking is particularly common amongst perfectionists. For example, if you’re on a diet, you might feel like you’re a failure if you eat one indulgent meal. Or you may believe you have nothing good to contribute to society. 

• Jumping to conclusions

Jumping to conclusions leads you to interpret situations negatively, even when there isn’t evidence to support it. For example, imagine you’re walking past a work friend, and they don’t acknowledge you. You might assume that they don’t like you, when in reality they just didn’t notice you.  

Other common cognitive distortions include personalization, blaming, fortune telling, mind reading, and magnifications. 

When you experience cyclical cognitive distortions, they may begin to affect your self-esteem and relationship quality, and lead to increased severity of mental health conditions like anxiety or depression. Furthermore, cognitive distortions can falsely inform our thoughts. In many cases, people take their faulty thoughts at face value, as if they were factual, objective truths. That’s how people begin to believe something is true without any supporting facts or evidence. For example, someone who feels as though they are ugly may believes that they must genuinely be unattractive, regardless of what other people see. 

However, even if you’ve gotten stuck in cognitive distortions, you can often reframe them and eventually reverse them. The first step is awareness. 

What is cognitive reframing? 

To better understand the concept of cognitive reframing, imagine you’re observing a situation through a picture frame. By moving the frame closer or further away, you can change your perspective and alter the way you view the situation. 

Reframing the way you think

There are many effective strategies that can help you challenge your cognitive distortions. You can try a few of these strategies and see what works best for you: 

• Become aware

Next time you jump to conclusions or start discounting the positives, recognize these thoughts and put a name to it. You might say to yourself, “I am discounting the positives. They may have given me that compliment because I genuinely did a good job on that project. After all, I did work hard on it.” 

 At first, you might not notice the distortions when they occur, but you’ll likely notice what comes next: negative emotions or low mood. When you’re feeling down, consider what triggered your feelings. 

You might also start recognizing certain environments that make you more vulnerable to cognitive distortions. For example, you may experience all-or-nothing thoughts around performance reviews, catastrophize before exams, or jump to conclusions when you’re feeling insecure in your relationship. 

Journaling may be a helpful tool for tracking and exploring your thoughts and feelings. 

• Make a thought record

When you experience negative thoughts or feelings, consider writing a thought record. This might include: 

The situation-: What is the event or situation? Example: Your friend didn’t text you back.

Your thought-: What did you think in response to the situation? Example: Your friend doesn’t like you.

Your emotions-: How did you feel? Example: You may feel lonely or sad.

How did you behaved-: What did you do in response? Example: You may have stared at your phone for hours and gotten sadder. 

What is an alternate thoughts you could have-: Is there a less negative thought you could have had? Example: “My friend must be busy, but this gives me time to do what I want to do.”

By writing down your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and weighing them against an alternative path, you may start to recognize patterns and distortions and how they impact your life. 

• Ask yourself “What if?” 

This strategy can be helpful for people who frequently catastrophize. To do so, consider what’s the worst thing that could happen, what’s the best possible outcome that could happen, and what’s the most likely thing to occur. By fully exploring the what ifs, you may reach a more logical outcome. 

• Question your assumptions

You can use the Socratic questioning method to systematically challenge negative thought patterns. Ask yourself questions like: 

Is this thought realistic? 

Is this thought based on facts, or am I basing it on feelings? 

What evidence do I have to support or disprove this thought? 

Is it possible I am not interpreting the evidence accurately? What other ways could I interpret it?

How could I test this belief?

Am I engaging in all-or-nothing thinking? Is the situation more complicated than I thought? 

Is this thought habitual or cyclical, or is it supported by evidence and facts? 

• Search for evidence

Try listing the facts. For example, if you discount the positives when your boss gives you a compliment for a job well done on a project, ask yourself how many hours you spent working on the project, how often you think your boss gives other people compliments when they’re unwarranted, and other evidence that indicates that you did a good job. 

• Get grounded in the present

Practices like mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and tai chi can help you become more aware and less judgmental of yourself. 

• Try a cost-benefit analysis 

If you’re struggling to release cognitive distortions, consider what the pros and cons are of maintaining them. For example, you could ask yourself: 

How do I benefit from thinking I’m terrible at my job? 

What are the emotional costs of this thought pattern? 

How does thinking I’m bad at my job limit my work performance? 

How would thinking I’m good at my job improve my life and career? 

How does this thought pattern challenge my relationship with others? 

Note that cognitive reframing can be difficult to do, at least at first, without outside expertise. It’s often recommended that you work with a therapist before attempting cognitive reframing on your own, especially for people dealing with mental health disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, or substance use disorders.  

Cognitive restructuring in therapy

Cognitive reframing is based on cognitive restructuring, which was developed as a tool for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). During cognitive restructuring, a therapist guides their client to consciously evaluate their thoughts, which are often inaccurate representations of reality. 

For example, if you’re experiencing chronic pain, you might sometimes believe that you’ll never feel good again. A therapist can help you recognize these all-or-nothing thoughts and how they impact the way you feel. Research shows that cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at modifying catastrophic thinking and other types of cognitive distortions can effectively manage chronic pain. 

If you need help challenging your cognitive distortions, you might want to try using an online therapy platform, like BetterHelp. The platform uses an intake form to match you with a licensed online therapist who meets your needs, preferences, and location, and the chat feature enables you to reach out to your therapist whenever you need help processing distorted thought patterns. 

Research shows that online CBT is effective for many people. A 2017 review of 373 studies found that online CBT was effective for a variety of disorders, including depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Additionally, the researchers found that online therapy can improve access to therapy for people living in rural areas or high demand.