Thinking traps are patterns of thought – usually with a negative swing – which prevent us from seeing things as they really are. Otherwise known as cognitive distortions, thinking traps are often deeply ingrained in our psyche.

Ever just know that someone else doesn’t like you without actually knowing for sure? If you have, you may have been suffering from one of the many thinking traps or cognitive distortions that can hijack your brain. 

Cognitive distortions are the ways that our mind convinces us of one thing when, in reality, it’s completely untrue. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking patterns – telling ourselves things that sound rational and truthful in the moment but only serve to trigger feelings of negativity and pessimism. These thoughts are irrational or just plain wrong. In fact, it’s not the event itself that causes feelings of negativity, it’s your response to the event – your mindset.

You can overcome these thinking traps by learning to notice and identify them, acknowledge the negative thinking patterns and refuting it. As you continue to dispute this negative thinking over and over again, it will slowly diminish and can be replaced with more rational, balanced thinking.

To help you identify these thinking traps when they occur, below is a list of the most common thinking traps:

Mind Reading –

We believe we know what others are thinking, we also believe they are usually thinking the worst of us. However, no one can read minds and we never know what others are thinking. We are trying to predict what is going to happen, with little or no evidence.

Fortune-Telling –

Fortune-telling occurs when we predict things will turn out bad and we believe the future is already set in stone and negative. We often act based on our mindset, which can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, “I knew I was going to fail my exam, I never succeed at anything”.

Black and White Thinking –

This trap occurs when we only look at situations in terms of one extreme or the other. A situation is either good or bad, success or failure – there is no middle ground and if you fall short of your expectations, you view yourself as a total failure.

Filtering –

Filtering involves only paying attention to the negative aspects of a situation while ignoring all the positives. When you only focus on the negatives, you end up viewing the entire situation as a negative.

Catastrophising –

Catastrophising involves an extreme overreaction to an event. It is a worst-case scenario thinking, which usually never happens but you convince yourself it will.

Over-Generalisation –

This is when you conclude that a single negative event is actually part of a series of unending negative events. If something bad happens, you believe it’s likely to happen again and again and even when time has passed you link it back.

Labelling –

Extreme forms of generalisation occurs when you attach a negative label about yourself or someone rather than acknowledging it was just a single event or mistake. Just being a little tired and deciding not to go for a walk that day doesn’t mean you are a lazy person.

Personalisation –

This is a distortion where you believe that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to something you’ve said or done. You end up taking everything personally when in reality it’s nothing to do with you. Additionally, you might also see yourself as the cause of some negative external event that happened even though you were definitely not involved.

Should Statements –

Thoughts that use the words “should” and “ought” aimed at the self tend to produce guilt and feelings of inadequacy. These types of statements tend to be moralising. That is, tend to turn situations into moral issues. While there are situations in life that deserve a should, we use this in a way to create extra emotional burdens within ourselves “I should be better at school” instead of “how could I do this task next time so I get a better result”.

Emotional Reasoning –

One of the most common thinking traps we fall into is emotional reasoning, taking our emotions as evidence for the truth. When you use emotional reasoning, whatever you’re feeling at the time is believed to be true automatically and unconditionally, regardless of evidence. This can be harmful because it creates a loop; you think something negative, which makes you feel bad, so you think more negative, which makes you feel even worse.

Control Fallacies –

This thinking trap involves two similar beliefs about being in complete control of pretty much everything in your life. The first type is called the external control fallacy, where we see ourselves as victims of fate with no direct control over our lives. The second type of control fallacy, internal control occurs when we assume, we are completely responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around us.

Fallacy of Fairness –

If you suffer from the fallacy of fairness, you often feel resentful because you think that you know what is fair, and no one is abiding by it. It may sound obvious to say, but “life isn’t always fair”. People who go through life assessing whether something is ‘fair’ or not will often end up feeling resentful, angry and unhappy.

Always Being Right –

When someone falls into this trap, they tend to put other people on trial to prove their own opinions and actions are the absolute correct ones. If you use this distortion, being wrong is unthinkable and you’ll go to any length to prove you’re right. Often being right can be more important than the feelings of other people, even close family and friends.

Beckham, E&C. (2004). Stallard, P. (2005). A Clinician’s Guide to Think Good-Feel Good. Mindsethealth.com