Recognising and challenging thinking errors

Thinking errors are cognitive distortions based on erroneous beliefs about ourselves or about the world. Everyone experiences thinking errors, but when those errors are extreme, they can impair personal functioning, relationships and wellbeing.

An understanding of the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) provides insight into how cognitive distortions can be replaced by more helpful thoughts, feelings and actions. Examples of different types of thinking errors are outlined below.

Techniques are also included to help leaders track the thinking patterns and understanding of their workforce, helping them to identify and challenge unhelpful thinking errors when they occur. How these strategies can be used to manage stress and support emotional resilience is also considered.

Thinking errors

There are several types of thinking errors:

• Magnification and minimisation: recognising only the negative aspects of a situation and ignoring or downplaying the positive. ‘My personal achievements are insignificant, but my mistakes are very important.’

• Catastrophising: ruminating about irrational worst-case scenarios and impending disaster. ‘I couldn’t solve the service user’s problem before the weekend – I just know something awful will happen to them.’

• Over-generalising: making broad interpretations from a single incident or a single piece of evidence. ‘I made a mistake with this person who uses services, so I am an incompetent worker and a bad person.’

• All or nothing’ thinking: over-generalising and seeing things in extremes. ‘I never do a good enough job – I am always going to fail.’

• Dogmatic demands: believing that things should be a certain way can cause guilt and expectations of punishment if our rules are violated. ‘I should do this/I shouldn’t do that.’

• Emotional reasoning: the assumption that our unhealthy emotions reflect reality. ‘I feel guilty, so I must have done something bad.’

• Magical thinking: a belief that one’s acts will influence unrelated situations. ‘I am a good person so bad things shouldn’t happen to me.’ (Or vice versa.)

• Personalisation: the belief that one is responsible for events outside of one’s control. ‘The service user is upset. It’s my fault; I haven’t done enough to help her.’

• Jumping to conclusions: interpreting the meaning of a situation despite having little or no evidence. This has two strands: a) mind-reading: interpreting the thoughts and beliefs of others without evidence (‘I wouldn’t get promotion, as I am stupid’), and b) fortune-telling: believing that future events are pre-ordained (‘Things will turn out badly, so why bother?’).

• Control fallacy: beliefs about being in control of every situation in one’s life. If we feel externally controlled, we are helpless and a victim of fate or chance: ‘I did a bad job as I was given the wrong advice’; if we feel internally controlled, we assume responsibility for the wellbeing and distress of everybody: ‘Why are you angry, what did I do to upset you?’

• Global labelling: generalising one or two personal characteristics into a negative global judgement about oneself or others. ‘I’m such a loser’; ‘He is such an idiot’; ‘People always let you down.’

• ‘Just world’ fallacy: the belief that the world is a fair place – good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. ‘Nobody has that much bad luck. She must have done something to bring it on.’

• ‘Heaven’s reward’ fallacy: the belief that self-sacrifice and self-denial will eventually pay off. ‘If I work hard enough, people will notice, and I will be rewarded. 

Thinking errors have implications for people’s wellbeing and professional functioning. ‘Personalisation’ and the ‘heaven’s reward fallacy’ might encourage over-commitment to the job, poor boundary setting and a reluctance to prioritise self-care; ‘global labelling’, on the other hand, could compromise positive outcomes for people who access services. We may fail to see the person behind the label and filter out any information that does not fit with our belief.

So, the ‘just world fallacy’ may encourage us to blame ‘victims’ in the belief that people who are experiencing challenging circumstances must somehow have brought it on themselves. ‘All or nothing thinking’ is a distortion often found in those who are anxious, perfectionist or have low self-esteem.

This can also be damaging for people who access services; a tendency to believe that ‘everything is right, or it is wrong’ may lead a worker to ‘over-generalise’ from one perceived ‘failure’ and so overlook improvements in other areas.

Identifying thinking errors in meetings and supervision

Active listening – based on warmth, genuineness and unconditional positive regard – is necessary to enable formation of a trusting relationship.

Conversations should be collaborative and should involve feedback and reflection. Notice how people use words that might signify thinking errors. For example, most people exaggerate at times, but chronic ‘all or nothing’ thinking can make us see the world and other people in over-simplified terms and encourage pessimism and feelings of helplessness. Listen out for and challenge words such as ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everything’, ‘totally’, ‘everyone’ or ‘no one’.

A more structured approach can be used to examine specific incidents (i.e. activating events) where thinking errors have been used. By focusing on the following issues during supervision and reflective conversations, leaders can gain insight into how unhelpful behaviours and mood states are triggered – and maintained:

• Situational: the environmental factors that were present

• Behavioural: what the person did

• Cognitive: the thoughts that were present at the time

•  Affective: the emotional reactions that occurred

• Interpersonal: who else was present

• Physiological: the bodily reaction that occurred.

Cognitive behavioural techniques for stress management and resilience

The techniques outlined above can be incorporated into supervision, reflective conversations or peer coaching sessions in which options for change are explored. Identifying thinking errors that underpin self-criticism, poor self-care, inflexibility and feelings of isolation will be particularly helpful. Cognitive behavioural techniques are an effective stress management tool for individuals. They can provide a fresh perspective on a situation, help people reduce the physical and emotional symptoms of stress and regain a sense of control, and encourage self-compassion.

There is evidence that stress management training based on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is more effective than many other methods (Bhui et al., 2012). Research by (Grant & Kinman, 2016) found that CBT also has the potential to enhance wellbeing and many of the qualities that underpin resilience.

Computerised CBT programmes can be as beneficial as face-to-face training for reducing stress and improving mental health (Proudfoot et al., 2003) and are more cost-effective. CBT principles can also be applied to teams and organisations.

Spotting and challenging individual and collective thinking errors has clear potential for enhancing group problem-solving and guiding systemic change. More information on developing resilience using CBT strategies for social care workers can be found in Alexander and Henley (2020).

This guide will also be relevant for healthcare professionals.