Introduction to Thinking Traps
Thinking Traps are common and unhelpful patterns of thinking that everyone falls into from time to time. If we fall into these thinking traps too often, they can cause us emotional distress, anxiety, or low mood. It is important to identify our thinking traps so that we can have an opportunity to tackle them.
As part of Dyl and Friends’ five episode Teach Me Pls podcast series, Tackle Your Feelings ambassador and host Dylan Buckley was joined by program psychologist Dr Emma Richardson to work through strategies to address the thinking trap of Catastrophising.
What is Catastrophising?
Catastrophising occurs when our thoughts exaggerate different scenarios and blow situations out of proportion, perceiving them as far worse than they actually are. This thinking leads us to view circumstances as awful or horrible, even when the reality may not be as severe as our mind suggests.
If we fail to recognise this and we’re not tuned into our thought patterns or the signs of catastrophising, we may experience heightened anxiety and panic, which can, in turn, influence our behaviour.
Signs of Catastrophising
Catastrophising occurs when the brain mistakenly perceives its exaggerated thinking as a helpful response, when in reality, it is counterproductive. In a fast-paced environment, we are required to constantly analyse, make decisions, and multitask. As a result, our brain tends to rely on shortcuts to process information more efficiently.
The brain may assess a situation and take a shortcut, predicting an outcome without fully considering all the options. It may default to a familiar pattern, assuming the worst-case scenario rather than evaluating the situation with clarity.
Individuals with a tendency to be more anxious are prone to catastrophising, as it is closely linked to excessive worry – particularly about the future or potential negative outcomes.
Dr Emma Richardson’s tips to tackle Catastrophising
1. We first have to recognise it. We have to be a little bit more in tune with what is going on in our mind and what we’re thinking, because a lot of the time our thoughts are really automatic and we don’t pay a lot of attention to them, we’re just going along doing our thing. Step one is catching the catastrophising thought.
2. Ask yourself a thought challenging question. One of my favourite thought challenging questions you can ask yourself when you are analysing your thinking is, “In this scenario, what’s actually the most likely thing to happen?”. Ask yourself: “What is the best case scenario?” “What is the worst case scenario?” “And, what is the most likely or realistic scenario?” By doing this we are trying to add in a little more information and context to help us start to challenge our thinking, because most of the time we are catastrophising, the reality is that the thought we are having isn’t particularly realistic or helpful.
3. Reframe your catastrophising thought. Once you have recognised the thought and checked the evidence for the thought (i.e. is this particularly realistic or not), then you can produce an alternative, more realistic thought.
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