Cognitive Distortions: Overgeneralizing

What is Overgeneralizing (aka overgeneralization), And How Do I Stop Doing It?

The Overgeneralization Cognitive Distortion

Overgeneralization is a cognitive distortion that refers to making a broad assumption about something from limited experience. An example is thinking, after a single rejection from a job interview, "I'm always going to fail at everything.” Overgeneralization is often implicated in clinical depression, anxiety disorders, and anger management problems.

Overgeneralization Examples

Overgeneralization can take many forms. We may, for example, predict the outcome of something based on just one instance of it:

• After going on a job interview and finding out we didn’t get the job, we conclude we’ll never get a job (overgeneralizing) and feel hopeless about our career, leading to sadness and depression.

• While talking to someone, we learn they adhere to a different political ideology than we do. Based on this, we assume all kinds of things about the other person (overgeneralizing), causing feelings of anger or even disgust.  

• Having spent five minutes learning to shoot a free throw and not making any baskets, we conclude basketball is too hard (overgeneralizing), and we give up, thinking it will always be this hard.

• After the first date with someone, they stop returning our texts, leading us to believe we’ll never be asked on a second date (overgeneralizing). Moreover, we think we’ll never find love (overgeneralizing)!

In the examples of overgeneralization above, it’s pretty clear that overgeneralizing unnecessarily leads to painful emotions. What’s also evident is that in each of these examples, the overgeneralization was a pretty inaccurate assumption. Working off of a faulty assumption and believing the distortion to be true, it becomes even harder to put any effort toward achieving your goals. Then your overgeneralizing conclusion might turn out to be true!

Overcoming Overgeneralizing With Cognitive Reappraisal

Usually, when we experience setbacks, painful emotions go along with them. The stronger the emotion, the more likely it is to influence our thinking and result in us believing a distortion, such as overgeneralization. Fortunately, we can reverse this pattern by being more introspective: examining our own thinking in order to come to a more balanced, reasonable perspective. This process is called cognitive restructuring or cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive behavioral therapy has numerous techniques and exercises for investigating the validity of cognitive distortions, such as overgeneralizing and distancing ourselves from these unhelpful thought patterns. A useful skill to help us let go of our attachment to overgeneralizing is to investigate our thoughts from a number of angles intentionally:

6 Steps to Stop Overgeneralizing

Step 1: Ask yourself: What are the costs and benefits of thinking this way? In other words, is it worth being so attached to this way of thinking? Does this kind of thinking protect you from anything? Is it harmful? If this thought costs you more than you’re gaining, it makes sense to develop more effective ways of reacting to the situation by going through the next five steps. 

Step 2: Collect the evidence that supports this thought. Are you basing your conclusion on a lot of relevant data or just one or two data points? Is there significant evidence against this particular thought? Is there a way to consider both the evidence against this thought and the evidence supporting it when thinking about this situation? Would the evidence you’re considering hold up in court, or is it too flimsy?

Step 3: Based on the current facts, do you think everyone would draw the same conclusion as you? If not, why not? Are they seeing something you’re not? Would other interpretations be more effective in coping or in achieving your desired outcome? If someone were handling this situation more effectively, how might their thinking be responsible for their success?

Step 4: Take a step outside of your own head for a moment. Pick a friend. If this friend came to you and told you the same thing was happening to them, what would you tell them? Is it different than what you’re telling yourself right now? Consider why you might be giving your friend different advice than you’re giving yourself and whether this is helpful. Would you tell a friend what you are telling yourself? If not, why not?

Step 5: Do you think you’re relying on the actual evidence, or is it possible you’re letting your feelings guide your thinking about this matter? Emotions tend to color our thinking, altering our conclusions we make and exacerbating natural errors in thinking. If you were feeling better or were in a better mood, what’s your best guess as to how you’d think about this situation?

Step 6: Identify examples of this interpretation not being true. What are the exceptions to this conclusion? Now, identify some more examples…

Looking at the thought from new perspectives helps us soften our attachment to old thinking patterns like overgeneralization. The best way to use these steps is first to identify the situations where you usually engage in this sort of distortion and apply the steps to them. You can even plan ahead by rehearsing these steps both before and during the situation. And don’t feel you have to be totally convinced of some other thought for this process to work. Just the act of taking on new ways of thinking can result in our emotions settling down and our thinking becoming more flexible.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is devoted to identifying similar patterns of thinking and helping people develop healthier thinking habits. Significant scientific research shows cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective treatment for a whole host of problems. Click here to learn more about cognitive therapy. 

Copyright © Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles, 2016
Updated 2022

Coping with COVID-19: Managing Mental Health, Anxiety, and Depression During the Pandemic by Living Your Values

by Suraji Wagage, PhD, JD

The global coronavirus pandemic has altered the way we live, adding a layer of uncertainty to our lives and increasing feelings of worry, anxiety, and depression. COVID-19 has begun to occupy nearly every headline and news story. Gathering places—gyms, bars, restaurants, workplaces—are being shuttered, and health experts discourage leaving the home for non-essential reasons and coming into close contact with other people. You or someone you know may have lost their job, and financial worries may be mounting. Within this new reality, you may find yourself, like many others, feeling increasingly anxious, disoriented, depressed, and adrift. Human beings rely on regular social contact to thrive and find stability in daily routines. Prolonged isolation negatively affects mood, increasing anxiety and sadness.

With the coronavirus spreading, new routines and new ways of living must be developed. You may find yourself wondering how to deal with these changes and how to continue living a rich, rewarding life under the restrictions that the pandemic has placed on us all. As so much around us changes, you may be thinking about your identity without a job or a routine that helps to define you. You may be feeling isolated or lonely. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help to clarify who you are and what matters most to you in order to live a valued, rewarding life, which is vitally important now as we live under certain constraints. You can begin this work today by using this effective strategy to discover and move toward what is most important to you in life.

1. Define your values in the areas most important to you. For each of the following areas, consider your values: directions that you can continue to move in for the rest of your life, as opposed to goals, which are specific and can be accomplished. For example, your values relating to friendship may involve being a thoughtful, honest, and responsible friend who can be relied upon in times of need to lend a helping hand or a listening ear and who expresses caring for others in words and actions (while a goal may be to call a friend who is having a hard time). These values can guide you indefinitely. They are directions rather than an endpoint to be reached. There are no right or wrong answers.

• Family relationships: What kind of family member would you like to be? It may be helpful to think about family members who have made an impact on you and what you appreciated about them. Are these qualities you would like to embody?

• Romantic relationships: How would you like to be as a romantic partner? What is important to you in romantic relationships, and what would your ideal relationship look like? How might you contribute to creating this partnership? Even if you are not currently in a romantic relationship, you can start living these values today.

• Parenthood: Are you a parent? What kind of parent would you like to be? Imagine your child or children describing you. What would you like them to say?

• Friendships and social relationships: What kind of friendships would you like to have, and how can you help to build them? What kind of friend would you like to be? Think of your most important friendships-- how would you describe these friends? What made these friendships special? What does it mean to you to be a good friend?

• Academic/professional life: What is important to you academically or professionally, and how would you like to be in these roles? What kinds of qualities are important to you in this area? Think broadly-- you do not need to have a job or be in school to value qualities like being hardworking, diligent, and reliable and to value learning in all the forms it can take.

• Spirituality: What does it mean to you to be spiritual? How is this area important to you?

• Community: Think about how you would like to contribute to your community, your society, and the world. What does it mean to be a good citizen?

• Recreation/leisure: How do you like to spend your free time, and what is important about how you spend this time?

• Physical health and wellbeing: How is physical health and wellbeing important to you?

2. Prioritize according to the importance of each area and identify areas for growth. Rate how important each area is to you from 0 (not at all important) to 10 (extremely important). Next, rate how consistently you have lived your values in each area in the past week from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). For example, if one of your values regarding parenthood is to be an empathetic and forgiving parent while setting firm boundaries for your children, how consistently did you do this over the past week?

Practice self-compassion. No one is perfect, and we are all doing our best. Living consistently with your values is a lifelong practice. When you notice a difference between how important the area is to you and how consistently you have lived your values in that area in the past week (e.g., family relationships are 10/10 in importance but 5/10 in living your values), ask yourself what barriers may be getting in your way.

3. Take steps today to live consistently with your values. For the areas that are most important to you, consider some action steps that can be taken immediately to live your values more fully. Think creatively about how you can continue to live your values under the current constraints of the coronavirus pandemic. For example, can you sit down for a meal with family or friends through a video call? Can you call to check in with a loved one you haven’t spoken with recently? If you are accustomed to going to the gym, can you try exercising at home using online videos as a guide? Can you talk to others about how they have been impacted? Can you take a free online course, or bake cookies, or take up a new hobby? Can you make a small donation for medical supplies? You can live your values as fully now as you could before the COVID-19 pandemic, though your action steps may be modified to fit the current circumstances. Try taking one step per day for the next week, remembering that each step, no matter how small, is a step toward living your values. Living your values can help manage feelings of anxiety and depression and improve overall mental health, but if you are struggling, you may wish to seek the help of a therapist. Click here for more information about the cognitive behavioral treatment of depression and anxiety.

This technique is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a newer, mindfulness-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999).

You can learn more cognitive behavioral therapy tools in this free online CBT workbook.

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K.D., & Wilson, K.G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavioral Change. New York: Guilford.

Cognitive Therapy Techniques: 5 Steps to Stop Worrying

Worry and stress seem to be an increasingly problematic part of modern life. Virtually constant connection to the 24-hour news cycle and social media provide a continuous source of anxiety-inducing thoughts. Financial and career uncertainty has upsurged despite a decade of consistent economic growth. Increased pressure to do more with less at work has created an expectation to multitask, dividing our mental focus in ways that breed anxiety. Now more than ever, we need simple, effective ways of taking care of our minds to keep worry at bay.

If you struggle with persistent anxiety, it is likely that excessive worry is largely to blame. Although sometimes worrying feels beneficial, protecting us from being unprepared or caught off guard, for many people, it causes more problems than it solves. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can reduce excessive worry in numerous ways. One powerful technique is through evaluating the worry to determine whether it is productive or unproductive. Determining a worry is unproductive makes it easier to let it go intentionally.

There are several questions you can ask yourself to evaluate your worry. After going through these questions, you’ll probably have a better idea whether the worry is helpful or just background noise that only serves to increase your anxiety:

1. What do you predict will happen, and what is the likelihood it will happen? Identify in detail what you are most concerned will happen. If it’s giving a speech, it may be people laughing at or heckling you. If you’re worried about a difficult interaction with someone, you may fear someone will yell at you or reject you in some way. If the concern is about making a mistake at work, you may fear being fired. Whatever the situation, consider what it really is that you are most afraid of. Oftentimes, just specifically identifying what we fear can help us realize our anxiety may be unfounded.

Once you identify the perceived threat, make some evidence-based predictions about how likely the threat is. How many times have you experienced this worst-case scenario before? (Does the person you’re thinking about often yell at others? Is it common for you or someone else to be laughed at during speeches? How often are people fired at your work, and when they are, what sorts of/how many infractions lead to their firing?) Would there be steps you could take to reduce the likelihood of your fear coming true? Could you, for instance, craft a sensitive way of being assertive in your feared interaction? How could you influence the outcome more in your favor? Given the situation you fear, is this a plausible outcome? (Do you really think people will heckle you at a professional conference?)

2. What are the best case scenario and most likely scenarios? Some people are already experts at identifying the worst-case scenario. In fact, they’re so good at it that they forget to consider other possibilities. It is helpful also to consider the best-case scenario, which is often equally as plausible as the worst-case. Finally, after identifying the extremes, consider what the most likely scenario is. Usually, our minds drift toward the more extreme potential outcomes, when in reality, the extremes happen less often. If you have difficulty identifying the most likely scenario, it may be helpful to find a scenario that has some degree of negative outcome paired with some degree of positive outcome. For instance, “I’ll give the speech, and there will probably be some people who are bored and some people who are really interested.”

3. How many times have you made this prediction, and it came true? Another way to consider the usefulness of your worry is actually to count how many times the worst-case scenario has happened. If you’ve driven on the freeway 100 times in the past year and have never gotten into an accident, those odds indicate your worry may be disproportionate. Even if you have been in an accident, your level of worry may have made it feel like it was a 50% chance, thus causing unnecessary fear. 

4. If the worst-case were to happen, what would you do to cope with it? People generally end their worrisome predictions right at the worst moment. You may find it helpful to think about what would happen next, specifically, what you would do to get through the difficult situation. If you do fail the test, you might be disappointed for the rest of the day, curl up on the couch with a pint of ice cream and watch T.V. Then you’ll probably get back on the horse by finding out what you did wrong and altering your study strategy so you pass the next time. Although failing an important exam is unpleasant, you probably have a lot you could do to deal with it effectively. Consider that, too!

5. What are the costs and benefits of worrying about this? Finally, examine how effective it is to worry about this situation. Some degree of worry may be helpful in motivating you to prepare. Too much, on the other hand, may paralyze you and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And some things, no matter how much you worry about them, you don’t have any control over. In these latter two instances, the worry is self-defeating. It is unproductive worry. When you identify a worry as unproductive, you can tell yourself, “Thinking about this is of no use to me now. Let it go.” Then, immediately refocus your mind on what’s actually going on around you. By rehearsing this behavior, intentionally letting go of worries again and again, you learn to become less consumed by anxiety and worry.

This technique comes from a cognitive behavioral therapy protocol for generalized anxiety. CBT for generalized anxiety has been found to be 70%-80% effective in significantly reducing anxiety symptoms, as compared to a 30% effectiveness rate of traditional talk therapy (Durham, 1995). CBT for anxiety works best with the help of a trained cognitive-behavioral therapist. If you or someone you know has problems managing anxiety, click here for more information about CBT for Anxiety. 

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles is a therapy practice of expert psychologists with the highest level of training and experience in providing evidence-based treatment. Click the button below to ask a question or schedule a consultation to determine whether CBT is right for you.

Durham, R.C. (1995). Comparing treatments for generalized anxiety disorder: Reply. British Journal of Psychiatry, 166, 266-267.

CBT Treatment for Chronic Depression

Most people who suffer from depression experience depressive symptoms for a limited duration, on average, 20 weeks. This is what is considered acute depression, meaning an episode of depression lasting a discrete period of time. However, some who experience acute depression go on to have symptoms that endure for an extended period, lasting many months or years. This is considered chronic depression. Chronic depression lasts at least six months, in which, more days than not, significant depressive symptoms are present. Research has shown that chronic depression can be more difficult to treat, requiring a longer course of treatment and different interventions than acute depression. Cognitive Behavioral Assessment System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) is the only treatment model developed specifically for people with chronic depression (Shatzberg et al., 2005). It is the subject of the largest study on psychotherapy in history and has shown to be significantly more effective than other treatments for chronic depression. 

According to the CBASP model, maltreatment and trauma experienced early in life can derail normal psychological development and sometimes result in early-onset chronic depression. Such maltreatment can take many forms, from physical abuse to perceived invalidation. Alternatively, later in life, an out-of-control mood state can also undermine psychological functioning in people with no history of neglect or abuse. Significant life events such as the onset of chronic illness, loss, and divorce can trigger such a mood state and result in lasting feelings of sadness and despair. Research has shown CBASP therapy is one of the few treatments that can effectively treat both early- and late-onset chronic depression.

Through CBASP treatment, people learn to objectively examine their interpersonal behavior's consequences in specific interactions. Through this process, patients learn to become more perceptually connected to their environment, observing where their behavior is working against them and identifying behavior more consistent with their desired outcome. It is this process that, over time, helps people move from persistent feelings of helplessness to an increased sense of mastery and contentment. These gains are accomplished through a technique known as situational analysis.

In situational analysis, one’s attention is repeatedly directed to the effect of one’s behavior on others and the effect of one’s interpersonal behavior on the therapist. Working through the situational analysis over time, the interpersonal trauma the patient brings to treatment is healed by separating those elements of the patient’s past she is projecting onto the present.

CBASP treatment has been shown to be highly effective in people whose depression symptoms do not respond to traditional talk therapy or to antidepressant medication. If you or someone you know is struggling with chronic depression, click for more information about cognitive behavioral treatment of depression. 

Shatzberg, A.F. et al. (2005). Medication or therapy is effective when the other is not. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 513-520.

All material provided on this website is for informational purposes only.  Direct consultation of a qualified provider should be sought for any specific questions or problems.  Use of this website in no way constitutes professional service or advice. 

Behavioral Activation to Treat Depression

It is estimated that in 2016, over 16 million adults in the U.S. had a major depressive episode. This represents almost 7% of all adults in the United States. Even more shocking, this number only accounts for a small subset of individuals with depression, as not everyone with clinical depression meets the diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode. Sadly, most people suffering from depression do not seek treatment despite the development of very effective treatment methods in the last few years. Recent research has demonstrated that cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold standard in treating depression.

Cognitive-behavioral models of depression have long held that depression is the result of an interaction between thoughts, feelings, and behavior (e.g., Beck et al., 1979; Rehm, 1977). Simply put, situations trigger some response of one of these elements, for example, thoughts. The thoughts then cause a chain reaction in which feelings are influenced, which in turn trigger behaviors, often resulting in a kind of emotional snowball with its own momentum. An example of this is someone not being invited to go out after work with the rest of one’s coworkers. This may trigger the thought, “No one likes me.” As a result of this thought, sadness is elicited, causing the person to go straight home and lie in bed. Having only one’s negative thoughts to occupy one’s mind, this cycle becomes stronger and stronger.

The cognitive behavioral approach to therapy is to target the thoughts, the behavior, or both to break the momentum of this system and inspire new emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to arise. Significant evidence suggests that merely increasing rewarding behaviors is a very effective way to treat depression effectively. Behavioral Activation (Martell et al., 2010) is a CBT treatment that has shown significant success in research studies. In fact, Behavioral Activation has been shown to be just as effective as antidepressant medication at reducing depressive symptoms and even more effective than medication at keeping the symptoms from recurring after treatment (Dobson et al., 2008).

The premise of behavioral activation treatment is that once we get into a depressive cycle, we slowly withdraw from activities that are rewarding. People who are depressed often spend too much time in bed, watching TV, avoiding people and beneficial activities. Behavioral activation is about gradually re-introducing rewarding activities back into people’s routines. These activities can either be pleasurable, such as going for a walk or scheduling dinner with a friend, or mastery-oriented, such as painting the bedroom or volunteering at a charity. After a period of consistently engaging in reinforcing activities, mood gradually improves, resulting in less self-defeating thoughts, and the upward mood cycle builds momentum.

The primary way of going about behavioral activation is through activity monitoring and activity scheduling. Keeping a detailed record of behavior during the week, as well as tracking feelings of pleasure and mastery associated with each behavior, serve as a guide to what might be missing from your routine. After tracking this for a few days to a week, the following weeks are spent gradually increasing rewarding behavior into your day by scheduling the new rewarding behaviors. In this way, people can come out of their depressive cycles by replacing them with contentment cycles. Sounds simple, but in practice, it can be quite difficult to engage in any activity when you’re feeling unmotivated.  Consequently, behavioral activation is usually most effective with the help of a trained cognitive-behavioral therapist who knows techniques to aid behavior modification and knows how to avoid potential pitfalls that can derail progress early on. Studies have shown behavioral activation for depression with a CBT therapist can improve symptoms after just the first session, with most people showing significant symptom reduction/remission after as few as 12 sessions.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, behavioral activation may be the right treatment for you. For more information on cognitive behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral treatment of depression, visit Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles.

Beck, A.T. et al. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford.

Dobson, K.S. et al. (2008). Randomized trial of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy, and antidepressant medication in the prevention of relapse and recurrence in major depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 3, 468-477.

Rehm, L.P. (1977). A self-control model of depression. Behavior Therapy, 8, 787-804.

Martell, C.R., Dimidjian, S, & Herman-Dunn, R. (2010). Behavioral Activation for Depression. New York: Guilford. 

CBT Techniques: Treating Thoughts as Guesses

Many people try cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how to manage their emotions better. Others seek help in curbing a destructive behavioral pattern, such as an addiction. In each case, one of the most powerful ways to help people change their emotions or behaviors is to start by helping them learn to change their thoughts. One of the many CBT techniques designed to aid in this task is treating thoughts as guesses.

We all have thoughts about the world we live in, our relationships, ourselves, the future, the past… Thoughts are an incredibly powerful tool for understanding the world around them. It is our ability to create mental representations of things and concepts in our minds that allows us to solve problems, create, and hopefully improve our lives. Unfortunately, however, thoughts also have the potential to cause suffering, creating rather than solving problems.

People suffering from emotional problems, such as depression or anxiety, have learned to think in ways that perpetuate the problematic emotion. For example, people with depression tend to make sense of the world in more pessimistic ways, often involving thoughts that they are helpless to improve things. Similarly, people with anxiety disorders frequently overestimate the likelihood of danger in their lives. These thinking patterns reinforce and intensify problems with emotion dysregulation, which in turn validate negative thought patterns and function similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 One CBT technique to reverse this negative feedback loop is to relate to thoughts less as facts and more as guesses. The reality is that many of the thoughts we have are not facts. They are merely conclusions that we develop in response to a limited set of facts. For instance, if you decide to enroll in a foreign language class and have difficulty after the first day, based on the limited number of facts available, you may have thoughts that it is too difficult and that you are just not cut out for learning languages. These thoughts may cause you to feel very discouraged, drop the class, and avoid future language learning opportunities.

The thought “I can’t learn new languages” is not itself a fact, but a conclusion drawn after your first class. It is very possible that with continued effort and practice in the class, what you thought was difficult on the first day may seem easy just a few weeks later. However, if you relate to “I can’t learn new languages” as an incontrovertible truth, chances are you will never stick with the language long enough to realize this. In this way, confusing thoughts with facts can be detrimental to your self-esteem and sense of agency.

The key is to begin to think of thoughts as guesses or hypotheses. Using the same scenario above, if after the first day you are overwhelmed, having thoughts of “I’m not smart enough to learn languages,” and begin to feel discouraged, you might do well to consider alternative explanations:

·       It may be that because this is new, it’s very unfamiliar and initially seems more difficult than it really is.
·       This is just the first class. It will likely become easier with time and repetition.
·       New subjects are usually more difficult at the beginning, so maybe I should give it more time and assess my ability level later on.
·       It might actually be very difficult, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn it. I may just have to work harder than I assumed initially.
·      Even if I do face a lot of difficulty or don’t learn the language perfectly, it is worth it to me to give it a try. After all, there were reasons why I wanted to learn this language, and none of them were because I thought it would be very easy.
 

Challenging yourself to treat your initial assumption as one of many possible guesses can be helpful in not rigidly holding onto it, and instead being able to shift flexibly to other, more helpful conclusions. By considering a range of possibilities, it becomes easier to go with the one that seems the most effective, in this case, the one that helps you stick with the language class long enough to achieve your language goal.

Many cognitive behavioral therapy techniques are designed to help you learn to see thoughts as guesses. In fact, in some ways, most CBT techniques are designed to do just that. You can try the following technique to help you consider a range of possibilities the next time you feel stuck:

1. When you are feeling an especially strong negative emotion, such as anger, sadness, or anxiety, stop and identify the thoughts that seem most responsible for fueling the emotion.

2. Pick the thought that packs the most punch, and remember that it is just one way of making sense of the available facts and is not necessarily a fact itself.

3. Brainstorm as many other hypotheses as you can, regardless of whether or not you believe them.

4. Pick a few that seem helpful, and write out how you might feel or act differently if you adopted this new thought

5. Once you decide on the most helpful way of making sense of the current situation, remind yourself of this new thought as much as you can. It won’t make the other thought disappear, but it will certainly reduce the old thought’s airtime in your mind, making it less dominant over your feelings and behavior.
 

By switching your orientation to thoughts as guesses instead of facts, you can learn to more flexibly and effectively think about a variety of different situations. Ultimately, this will likely result in you feeling better when challenges arise. Loosening your grip on unhelpful thought patterns can also help you make better choices and act more effectively in difficult circumstances.