in today's video i'm going to be talking about catastrophizing which is an extremely common
cognitive distortion that we all fall into i'll be talking about what it is
how it contributes to anxiety and depression and what you can do about it
hi everyone in today's video we're going to be continuing our series on
cognitive distortions and faulty ways of thinking that can contribute to anxiety and depression
and this video's topic is going to touch on the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing 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 things out of the way let's start talking about catastrophizing now i
want you to imagine a scenario where i wake up one morning and i have a really terrible headache and
my head is pounding as i'm eating breakfast and so as i'm as i'm there eating i start to think about
oh my goodness what if this is a brain tumor and i start to think that maybe the the cancerous tumor
has spread throughout my body i begin to think about you know how that might lead
to my untimely death i start to think about my final days lying in a hospital bed with
friends and family coming to visit and i see how how sad people are and how they you know
go off to one side of the room and speak softly to one another in the corner of the room
sort of thinking that i can't hear them talk about what an awful shame it is that i'm gonna die
and as i'm thinking about this my my stomach drops my heart sinks and i feel
in total despair by the time i finish my breakfast and so i i go i have a shower and
by the time i finish my shower my headache's gone as it turned out i was just hungry
this is an example of catastrophizing and what happens in catastrophizing is we take
a relatively minor event and we blow it completely out of proportion it's the mental equivalent of
making a mountain out of a molehill and so what happens with catastrophizing is that
i take a relatively small event like a headache one morning and i imagine the extreme and horrible
consequences that could happen as a result of that event so a small argument with my friend means
that the friendship is over and i'm gonna lose all of our mutual friends because they're gonna side
with my other friend if i get turned down for a date this means i'm gonna spend my entire life
alone if i make a mistake at work or i'm late to work that means i'm going to be fired and
i'll never find another job if i have a brief dip in my mood that means i'm going to spiral
into the worst depression yet so you see what's happening in all these examples
is i'm taking something that that could be happening something that's that's actually
tangible and yet i'm blowing it up and it's mushrooming into something that is so much worse
so what happens with catastrophizing is twofold first i predict the worst possible outcome
in the situation and the second thing that happens is that i anticipate that if that situation were
to actually occur i wouldn't be able to cope with it and it would be a total disaster
so what ends up happening is that my emotional response be it anxiety or depression becomes
based on the interpretation of that event rather than the event
itself in other words i'm reacting emotionally as if my friendship is over and i've lost all
of those mutual friends rather than reacting to i just had this small argument with my friend
i react to the scenario of being single and spending my entire life alone
rather than just responding to having been turned down for one date i react to being fired and never
getting another job rather than responding to being late at work or making a mistake at work i
react to spiraling into the most severe depression i've ever had then responding or reacting to the
brief and temporary dip in my mood so my emotional reactions aren't based on what's happening
they're based on this worst case scenario in my mind this catastrophe that's occurred
so catastrophizing makes me feel awful but there's an additional problem that comes with it
because i'm focusing on an imaginary or imagined catastrophe i'm unable to cope with the actual
event or the real problem that's occurring my emotional reactions to the perceived catastrophe
interfere with my ability to cope with they interfere with my ability to problem solve
they interfere with my ability to take steps to prevent such a catastrophe so essentially i become
frozen by the distress and despair of this imagined catastrophe and being frozen prevents me
from actually taking steps to solve the immediate problem that i worry about becoming a catastrophe
so if you can relate to that if you relate to catastrophizing the question becomes okay what do
i do then how how do i cope with catastrophizing well the first step is with all of these cognitive
distortions is that it's key and it's critical to recognize when you're engaging in catastrophizing
so this can be done by noticing when you're having a really strong emotional reaction to a particular
situation so you feel a really intense level of despair or or sadness you feel extremely anxious
or panicky and so then when you catch yourself experiencing those really strong reactions to
a particular event you want to ask yourself is this emotional reaction appropriate given
what's actually going on as opposed to what i think this situation means so the goal is to
recognize that i'm engaging in catastrophizing and then focus on dealing with the event
not what i think it symbolizes and so what this does is it brings me back to what's actually going
on in the moment what's actually happening the actual problem that's taking place and that allows
me to refocus my efforts on dealing with what's actually happening as opposed to being frozen and
incapable of dealing with a catastrophe that isn't happening and a catastrophe that may never happen
so that's a little bit about catastrophizing what it is it's very common people do it all the time
but i hope that gives you a little bit of better sense of of what it is how it can make depression
and anxiety worse and what you can do and how you can manage when you catch yourself catastrophizing
so i'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas about this so please leave me some comments
in the comments section down below if you've been enjoying my videos and would like to see more
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a new video so that's all for today's video as always thank you for making it
all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one