Sometimes our minds play tricks on us or our students. Harvard Health says that cognitive distortions, or negative or unhelpful thinking patterns, make us feel worse, more anxious, and bad about ourselves. In order to quell these feelings of anxiety, we can equip ourselves and our students with tools.
Elizabeth Janca, experienced school administrator, former campus testing coordinator, licensed professional counselor, and Possip Reporter shares ways to address unhelpful thoughts that can increase anxiety.
Let’s look at what cognitive distortions are and what to do about them. Then, to combat these negative thought patterns, we can learn a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tool, Catch it, Check it, Change it. This allows us to learn how to recognize a cognitive distortion (Catch it), identify the distortion (Check it), and reframe thoughts (Change it).
What does unhelpful thinking look like?
While there are a lot of cognitive distortions, 10 are identified as the most common:
| Unhelpful Thought | Explanation | Example |
| All or Nothing | Sometimes called “black and white” thinking – one extreme or the other | “I’m going to get a 0 or 100 on this test.” |
| Mental Filter | Identifying only thoughts that support what you believe | “I got a 90 on the quiz, but a 75 on the test so I don’t know the material at all.” |
| Jumping to Conclusions | Mind reading – assuming you know what someone else is thinking Fortune telling – assuming you know what will happen | “They’re really quiet so they must hate my idea. They are going to want to go a different direction with the project.” |
| Emotional Reasoning | How you feel in a situation is a reflection of your character | “I answered that question wrong out loud and I’m so embarrassed. I’m such an idiot.” |
| Labeling | Assigning labels to ourselves or others based on limited data | “I’m awkward so I can’t make friends.” |
| Over-generalizing | Seeing a pattern based on a single event | “I failed this test so I will fail them all.” |
| Disqualifying the Positive | When something good happens, saying that it doesn’t count | “They sat with me at lunch out of pity. It won’t happen again.” |
| Magnification/Minimization | Blowing things out of proportion or making them a smaller deal than they are | “I failed that test so I’ll never graduate high school!” |
| Should/Must | Using these phrases can make us feel guilty or like we have already failed | “Even though the power went out last night and it got hot I should have gotten 8 hours of sleep for this test.” |
| Personalization | Blaming yourself or taking all of the responsibility for something | “I should have done the entire project, or checked in with my partners more often. Now we’re going to fail.” |
How to Address Unhelpful Thinking
Use this tool: Catch it, Check it, Change it
- Recognize a thought might be a cognitive distortion (Catch it).
- Identify and verify the distortion (Check it).
- Reframe thoughts – shift perspective to look at it differently (Change it).
Unhelpful Thought Example | Reframe Example |
| “I’m going to get a 0 or 100 on this test.” | “I have studied really hard for this test and I am going to do my best and get the grade I worked for.” |
| “I got a 90 on the quiz, but a 75 on the test so I don’t know the material at all.” | “I did well on the quiz. The day of the test I felt tired because I didn’t sleep well. The quiz shows that I do know this material.” |
| “They’re really quiet so they must hate my idea. They are going to want to go a different direction with the project.” | “They’re quiet because they’re thinking about my idea. They may need time to process it and figure out what they want to say.” |
| “I answered that question wrong out loud and I’m so embarrassed. I’m such an idiot.” | “I did my best with that question. I may not have known the answer, but I could answer the question after, so I am knowledgeable.” |
| “I’m awkward so I can’t make friends.” | “I have several friends who love me and my awkwardness.” |
| “I failed this test so I will fail them all.” | “One test doesn’t determine all of my scores, I have passed other tests before.” |
| “They sat with me at lunch out of pity. It won’t happen again.” | “They sat with me at lunch. And Chad sat next to me in class, Emily sat with me on the bus. They enjoy spending time with me.” |
| “I failed that test so I’ll never graduate high school!” | “Failing this test hurts, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll fail everything.” |
| “Even though the power went out last night and it got hot I should have gotten 8 hours of sleep for this test.” | “I got as much sleep as I could given the circumstances. I can talk to my teacher about maybe taking the test on a better day.” |
| “I should have done the entire project, or checked in with my partners more often. Now we’re going to fail.” | “I did my part and can only hold myself accountable. They are responsible for themselves.” |
Note: Work with a Counselor
Often it can be difficult to identify and practice reframes on our own. To that end, it can be helpful to work with a school counselor or licensed professional counselor to do this. A counselor can support you in your journey as well as process where these unhelpful thoughts originated.
What does reframing unhelpful thinking look like for different ages?
Because of their critical thinking skills, Catch it, Check it, Change it can feel more attainable for middle school and above. However, it’s also applicable with our elementary-age students, just with more guidance. With middle school and older students we can prompt “Let’s think about that [unhelpful thought] differently”. They may be able to rationalize and create a reframe themselves. With elementary age students we may need to provide more structure and guidance to create a reframe.
