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CBT · 5 minute read

Thinking patterns

The predictable ways an anxious or low mind bends the facts, and why naming them helps.

In the early 1960s the psychiatrist Aaron Beck noticed something in his depressed patients. Their thoughts weren't random: they leaned the same few ways, again and again. Every setback proved they were failures; every kind word was luck. He called these slants cognitive distortions, and they became the starting point of cognitive therapy, now CBT.

The psychiatrist David Burns later gave them everyday names in his book Feeling Good (1980), and that's the list most people know today. In Maya they're called patterns, and you'll sometimes see one on a card.

Everyone's mind does this, especially when tired, anxious or low. A pattern isn't a flaw in you; it's a shortcut the mind takes under pressure.

The common ones

  • All-or-nothing

    "If it isn't perfect, it's a disaster." Ask: is there a middle ground?

  • Overgeneralizing

    "This always happens to me." Ask: always, or a few times I remember?

  • Mental filter

    One awkward moment colours the whole evening. Ask: what am I leaving out?

  • Discounting the good

    "They were only being polite." Ask: what good things am I brushing aside?

  • Fortune-telling

    "It's going to go badly." Ask: what evidence do I actually have?

  • Feelings as facts

    "I feel stupid, so I must have messed up." Ask: does feeling it make it true?

  • "Should" rules

    "I should be coping better." Ask: whose rule is this, and is it fair?

  • Labeling

    "I'm such an idiot." Ask: would I say that to a friend who did the same?

  • Taking it personally

    "They're quiet, so I must have upset them." Ask: what else could explain it?

  • Catastrophizing

    "If I fail this, my life is over." Ask: what's most likely, not just worst?

Naming it is the first step

Spotting a pattern gives you a little distance: the thought stops being simply true and becomes something your mind is doing. From there you can test it, with Evidence check, or step back from it, with Zoom out.

You don't need to argue with every thought. The aim isn't to think only positive things; it's to see the facts a bit more clearly.

Priya didn't get a job she interviewed for. She thinks, "I never get anything. I'll be stuck forever." Which pattern is this most like?

Tom feels anxious walking into a meeting and thinks, "Something must be wrong." Which pattern is this?

Sources and further reading

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