What do the following types of thoughts have in common?
Ø I never do anything right
Ø If I go to that party, I’m going to be awkward and embarrass myself
Ø I failed another test. I’m so stupid.
Ø They looked at their phone while I was talking. They must be so bored with me.
Ø He didn’t reply to my text, something terrible has happened on the road.
They’re all traps! Thought Traps are unhelpful thinking styles that we get caught in all the time. The reality is we will all fall into these traps at some point. These thoughts become problematic when they are so frequent that they start contributing to feelings of anxiety and depression. Paying attention to what your mind is thinking can help you escape the trap before thoughts start to spiral. It’s also useful for us to identify which traps we most often fall victim to so that we can become aware of our patterns and help ourselves get unstuck. Here are some of the most common ones I come across in my work, and how to counter them.
THOUGHT TRAP - Mind Reading
Assuming we know what other people are thinking about us (and usually assuming it to be negative)
Example: They thought I was lame; I could tell by their face that they didn't like me; the teacher thinks I'm a bad student.
It’s a trap because, unfortunately, none of us have mind reading superpowers (and if we did, we would likely see that we often assume incorrectly).
Get Unstuck: We stop mindreading by giving our brain counterthoughts. For example, reminding ourselves that the teacher’s sharp tone could be a dozen different things: maybe it’s their normal voice, or a bad day, or they’re tired. The guy on the bus who seems to be glaring at you could just be zoned out, sleepy, or lost on his own thoughts.
THOUGHT TRAP - Mental Filter
only letting in the bad evidence and ignoring the good.
Example: My friend sent a text in the middle of our conversation. They must be bored with me or uninterested in what we’re talking about; three audience members look bored so my presentation must be terrible.
It’s a trap because we are zeroing in on some evidence while ignoring the evidence that disproves our thought in the first place. Someone in the Mental Filter trap might assume that their friend isn’t interested in them because they looked at their phone, but ignore the smiling, eye contact, and back and forth conversation.
Get Unstuck: We get out of this trap when we let more evidence come through our filter. Turn your attention to the positives. It’s true that 3 people looked bored, but a handful of people asked questions and no one got up and left, so it wasn’t as bad in reality as I thought it was.
THOUGHT TRAP - Emotional Reasoning
it feels like it’s true, so assuming it must be a fact.
Example: I feel unloved, that means I don’t have any friends or family who care; I feel stupid, that means other people must think I am too; I feel tired, that means I’m lazy and never work hard enough.
It’s a trap because feeling a certain way does not make it true.
Get Unstuck: We need to remind ourselves that feelings come and go, just like thoughts. Thoughts and feelings are just things that we have, sometimes they’re accurate and sometimes they aren’t at all. We get out of this trap by acknowledging our feeling and giving ourselves a more reasonable thought to think instead. I feel unloved because no one checked in on me today, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about me. There’s many days that go by where I don’t text every person I care about either.
THOUGHT TRAP - Overgeneralizing
Making sweeping statements about ourselves or others based on only the most recent events. These thoughts often have words like “always” “never” “nobody” “everybody” “all” or “none” attached to them.
Example: I never do anything right; Nobody ever likes me when they get to know me; everybody thinks I did terrible; I always make a fool of myself; none of my friends show that they care; I always have to do all of the chores.
It’s a trap because human beings are never so consistent!
Get Unstuck: We need to pause and consider the counter-evidence. There is surely a time you did one thing right, or one person does like you, or one time you did something that didn’t end with embarrassment. If there is counter-evidence, then your thought is not a fact. Then, we need to replace the thought with something more realistic, like Sometimes I do the wrong thing and someone gets upset with me as a result. Everybody makes mistakes and all I can do is learn from this one; I can’t be everybody’s cup of tea but there are people who like me; my friend just shows he cares in different ways than I do.
THOUT TRAP - Helplessness
Ignoring choices and courses of action and believing that you’re helpless.
Example: There’s nothing I can do to change his opinion of me; I’m just bad at school and I’ll never get better; it doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t make friends.
It’s a trap because these thoughts prevent us from taking accountability and moving forward. In reality, there are usually things we haven’t tried.
Get Unstuck: The reality is we always have choice and courses of action, even if some of the courses are ones we’d never take. We need to get real with ourselves and at least list the options that could be taken. For example, making friends could happen if you choose to put yourself out there, join a club, or commit to starting three conversations a day. Even if you don’t want to do any of these things, they are still choices. Once we’ve identified the course of action, we want to reframe the thought so it is more realistic and less helpless. If I really wanted to try and meet new people I could join a few clubs and introduce myself, I’m just not willing to do that yet.
