In today's episode of The Social Work Journal, we talk about Cognitive Distortions. This episode is dedicated to Aaron Beck, who passed away on November 1st, 2021. Aaron Beck founded the Beck's Depression Inventory. Moreover, he discovered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is the therapeutic treatment for Cognitive Distortions. Throughout this episode, Deltom dives deep into numerous types of cognitive distortions and methods to overcome them.

[1:10] Cognitive Distortions - Deltom explains what a cognitive distortion is and distinguishes it from rumination

[02:24] Examples of Cognitive Distortion - Deltom delineates cognitive distortions with practical day-to-day scenarios.

[04:17] Polarized Thinking - This is a type of cognitive distortion. Deltom interprets polarized thinking as black and white thinking.

[04:50] Overgeneralization - A cognitive distortion where a person takes one experience and relates it to other incidents that remind them of the previous experience.

[05:30] Catastrophizing - According to Deltom, catastrophizing consists of what-if statements exploring worst-case scenarios and instances where there is no evidence that such adverse events will occur.

[08:42] Some Other Types of Cognitive Distortion- Deltom speaks about several other cognitive distortions such as personalization, mind-reading, mind filtering, “should” statements, labeling, and emotional reasoning.

[15:28] Implications of Cognitive Distortions - Deltom talks about the consequences of cognitive distortion, mentioning depression and anxiety.

[18:10] Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Tactics - Deltom explains several methods to overcome cognitive distortions: Thought stopping, questioning the evidence, labeling distortions, and replacing non-productive activities with productive activities.

[21:10] Personal Experience – Deltom shares her personal experience with cognitive distortions and her takeaways from that.

Quotes:

“No one or nothing can be all good or all bad. People especially have positive traits, and they have negative traits; and there are pros and cons to everything.”

“If you want to have cognitive distortions under control, you want to reframe the way you think about things, the way you perceive things after identifying the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.”

“You know, if you want to be in control of yourself, you pick and choose how you use your time, and you pick and choose what you allow yourself to attend to.”

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