today we're going to be talking about something called the fortune teller error
what it is how it can contribute to depression and anxiety and how you can stop it
hi everyone in today's video we're going to continue our series on cognitive distortions
and biased ways of thinking that can contribute to anxiety and depression and this week's topic
is the fortune teller error which is a very common type of cognitive distortion but before
i get into that just a couple of disclaimers to go over i'm a registered psychologist in
the province of british columbia canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not
intended as a substitute or replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional
now with those two things out of the way let's start talking about the fortune teller error which
is similar to another cognitive distortion that i've talked about in a previous video
which is mind reading and in mind reading the person assumes that they know what someone else
is thinking whereas in the fortune teller error the person assumes that they know what's going to
happen in the future so it's almost like the individual who's engaging in fortune teller
fortune teller error or mind reading has some sort of extra sensory perception
in the fortune teller error i it's almost like i feel like i'm able to predict the future and in
the context of experiencing depression or anxiety typically the future is predicted to be dark
and grim and so i make negative predictions about what's going to happen and then the fortune teller
error leads me to assume that my prediction is right that my prediction is accurate and this
is how it is actually going to turn out now it's important to note that the prediction is often
influenced by how i'm feeling at the time when i make the prediction so what can often happen is
when a person's experiencing depression the worse i feel the more depressed the more anxious i am
there's a tendency to have more dire and more negative predictions of what's going to occur
so my predictions aren't necessarily based in fact but it's more based in kind of how
i feel if i feel down i predict that things are going to turn out negatively if i feel anxious
i predict that things are going to go wrong or something bad is going to happen now
one of the big problems with the fortune teller error is that it can lead to almost like a
self-fulfilling prophecy so imagine a scenario where i'm single and i'm really discouraged
about being single i'm not having very much luck with online online dating
so i might predict that i'm never gonna fall i'm never gonna find love i'm never gonna end up
in a committed relationship and that i'm going to be single and miserable for the rest of my life
now think about how that might affect my behavior think about how that fortune telling may influence
my behavior what will it do for my motivation to engage in dating or put myself out there what
might it do for my my willingness or my courage to ask someone out on a date if i predict that
nothing i do will be successful which is kind of the point of the fortune telling error then
what's the point in trying and so what ends up happening is i stop dating or i stop pursuing
relationships which in turn results in me not having a relationship and the longer it goes
that i'm not in a relationship the more down and hopeless i get about ending up in a relationship
so the fortune teller error essentially becomes this self-perpetuating cycle where my negative
predictions change my behavior in a way that makes it more likely that the negative predictions will
actually come true so it's kind of sneaky and nasty that way in terms of how those
negative predictions drive behavior to make the negative predictions actually come true
now another problem with the fortune teller error is that it
causes us to not recognize that our beliefs are actually predictions but rather what can happen
if we do enough of this fortune telling is that we tend to see our beliefs as fact so
it's not that i perceive myself to believe that i'm going to fail a test for example but
i believe that i'm going to fail the test so why bother studying so it's not that i
recognize it as a perception that you know maybe i'm going to fail the test i believe
i'm going to fail the test so it becomes one of these things also of you know why bother
it's not that i believe that i might not get a job i believe that i'm not going to get a job so
why bother wasting my time with a job interview so in this way we behave towards the prediction
as if the prediction was a fact we behave towards a prediction like we have a crystal ball and that
we're looking into the future and the crystal ball is telling us what's going to happen
and we behave accordingly so you can imagine how this might negatively affect
mood and depression if i perceive that i'm going to fail at much of what i do if i perceive and i
believe that things are not going to work out for me that the future is bleak and hopeless
what do you think that's going to do to my mood well it's going to drive my mood down
and it's going to make me feel more depressed so the question becomes if i'm engaging in this
fortune teller error what can i do about it how do i change this well the first step is to recognize
when you actually are engaging in fortune teller and the fortune teller error these cognitive
distortions work really well when we're not aware that we're doing them so the first step is to
notice whenever you're predicting something bad is going to happen that hasn't actually happened yet
if you're doing that you're likely engaging in a fortune teller error and when you catch yourself
engaging in the fortune teller error you want to remind yourself that you do not own a crystal ball
and you're probably not very good at predicting the future because not many people are
now another powerful tool to challenge the fortune fortune telling error
is one that i've talked about a lot in other videos and that's
tolerating uncertainty at its core the concept of intolerance of uncertainty is really just an
example of the fortune teller error and building tolerance for uncertainty through things like
behavioral experiments or challenging your predictions by doing things to challenge
those predictions by taking risks these are all powerful ways of short-circuiting the
fortune teller error essentially testing out those predictions and demonstrating to
yourself that in fact you aren't very good at predicting the future just like everybody else
so i hope that gives you a better sense and a clear idea of what the fortune teller error is and
how it can contribute to anxiety and depression i'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas about
this so please leave me some comments in the comment section down below if you're enjoying
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thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one