Are your thoughts misleading you?
Thinking traps can affect our resilience.
Many of us have probably experienced this situation. Our manager says they’d like a meeting with us, and suddenly, a barrage of worst-case scenarios floods our mind.
“She’s angry with me. I must have made a serious mistake. What if she’s planning to fire me? Maybe that’s why she wants a meeting with me,” we may think.
If you’ve ever had such thoughts that probably have no basis in reality, then you’ve fallen prey to thinking traps.
What are thinking traps and how do they impact us?
I learned this term in the Resilience Skills course as part of the Positive Psychology Foundations specialization that I’m currently taking on Coursera. Psychologist Dr Karen Reivich uses this term to describe inflexible, counterproductive thoughts and inaccurate ways of thinking. The term draws from the work of Dr Martin Seligman on explanatory styles, which I’ve written about here, as well as the work of Dr Aaron Beck on cognitive distortions, a concept used in cognitive therapy.
Thinking traps can weaken our relationships, well-being, and ability to solve problems. Dr Karen Reivich says thinking traps can impact us in three ways.
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They affect our emotions: Often it’s not an event but rather our thoughts or beliefs about an event that influences how we feel. In the scenario above, we may have thoughts such as “I’m going to get fired” or “She’s unhappy with my work.” Such thoughts make us feel anxious or angry.
They affect our behavior: If a thought makes us feel anxious or angry, we act accordingly. If we assume we are going to get fired, we may get angry. And if we act on our anger, we may say or do something, which could have an adverse effect on our lives.
They affect our physiology: Our interpretations of an event could also affect our body. If we believe we are going to get fired or perhaps criticized, it creates stress in our bodies, triggering a fight or flight response wherein our bodies begin preparing to face a threat, whether real or perceived.
What are the different types of thinking traps?
While there are several types of thinking traps, these three resonated with me from the Resilience Skills course. Here’s what they entail.
Mindreading: Here, we assume we know what the other person is thinking, or we assume they know what we are thinking. For example, you’re juggling a lot of things and are feeling overwhelmed. Suddenly, you’re angry at your partner because he or she hasn’t offered to help. Here, you didn’t explicitly state that you wanted help. Instead, you assumed your partner would read your mind. As shown in this situation, mindreading often blocks communication.
Me: In this thinking trap, we assume we are the main cause of a problem and that we are causing harm to others. Often, when we see a loved one suffer, we may think we are to blame for what they are going through. Maybe if we’d supported them more or been more proactive, they wouldn’t have faced that setback. This thinking trap can lead to feelings of guilt and sadness.
Catastrophizing: This involves imagining worst-case scenarios, which are often unlikely to happen. For example, when doomscrolling, you read an article about a potential recession, and your mind immediately begins spinning stories about how the recession could lead to you losing your job and eventually your house. Catastrophizing, as we can see, can cause anxiety and agitation.
If you’d like to learn more about thinking traps, you can read Dr Karen Reivich’s book The Resilience Factor or take the Resilience Skills course in Coursera.
To sum up, thinking traps, if left undetected, can affect our body, emotions, and our behavior. Thankfully, there are ways in which we can deal with them. In my next article, I will cover practical ways in which we can overcome thinking traps. So, stay tuned.
