Counseling Center

Unhelpful Cognitions

 When we think about automatic thoughts, we can often place them into a number of common categories of styles of thinking that everyone engages in. When I say everyone, I mean everyone, not just people who struggle with anxiety. These ways of thinking are so common in fact that we have names for them.  

One of the most commonly used styles of thinking is what we call “catastrophizing.”  This is when your thoughts snowball. So for example, you start with the thought, “I’m going to fail this test”, which leads to the thought, “If I fail the test, I’ll fail the class”, and then, “I’ll fail out of college and never graduate,” and then, “I’ll never get a good job”, and finally, “I’ll be homeless and unable to support myself.”  Notice how that went downhill pretty quickly.  Sound familiar?

That is just one example of many. Go ahead and click here and take a look at each of the different thinking styles. As you go through these styles of thinking, start to identify in some way (star, circle, or highlight, whatever works for you) the ones you tend to use. This may include all of them, it may be just a few.

Let’s practice identifying unhelpful thinking patterns by returning to the sample party situation here. What do you think are some of the unhelpful thinking styles this person may have had? Go ahead and jot the thoughts down near the cognitive box.

Applying to Your Own Work

Turn back to your own cross sectional formulation again. Do any of the thoughts you wrote down in the cognitive box of your homework fit into any of these unhelpful thinking categories? Go ahead and write the unhelpful thinking style near the corresponding thought in the cognitive box on your worksheet.

These unhelpful thinking patterns can trigger other anxiety symptoms. And as you may have noticed, we come back a lot to the interactions between thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and physical symptoms, and talk about how they each impact one another. Each of these types of symptoms (unhelpful thoughts included) can be triggers for other symptoms.

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Last Updated: 6/27/22