today i'm going to be talking about overgeneralization what it is how this
cognitive distortion can fuel depression and anxiety and what you can do about it
hi everyone in today's video we're going to continue our series on cognitive distortions
and the mental shorthand that we often use that can often get us into trouble with
situations where we might be experiencing depression or anxiety
and in this video we're going to be talking about the cognitive distortion
of overgeneralization 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 over generalization and so to explain over generalization i want you to imagine a scenario
suppose i'm i'm having a bad day and i'm driving home and i'm getting frustrated when i'm driving
and i get stopped at a red light then i get really upset and really frustrated and i think to myself
i always get stuck at every red light this is an example of over generalization in everyday life
what happens in overgeneralization is that we take a single event and use that single
event to represent an invariable and unchanging rule one negative event becomes a never-ending
pattern so if i make a mistake on one assignment i'm bound to fail this course
one criticism from my partner is just the start of a series of complaints to follow
a rainy day means the sun isn't going to come out for the rest of my vacation if i interview
for a job and don't get it i'll never get a job these are all examples of over generalization and
where over generalization comes from is that we all tend to look for patterns in our lives we all
like to see patterns because patterns help us predict what might happen next and to help us
allow us help allow us to plan for the future but in over generalization what happens is the
perceived patterns all tend to be negative and the danger is that you accept them to be true
really before you have any evidence to support whether or not these patterns are true or not
so what can happen with over generalization is that you can tend to end up viewing negative
experiences as a set pattern that that's just what's going to always happen uh you can also
assume that one failure is going to predict ongoing failure and the same activity in the same
task so for example if i'm unsuccessful asking a woman out for a date i'm always going to be
unsuccessful asking anyone out on a date uh this can also lead to worsening negative self-talk is
sort of really getting more critical and harsh with myself and it can contribute to a feeling
that i can't do anything right so what over generalization does is it tends to lead to a
person's life getting smaller and more restricted due to faulty beliefs about what they can't do
what they don't like doing or what they have to avoid doing or something bad will happen
so you can see how this type of cognitive distortion can lead to feelings of hopelessness
anxiety and social situations and excessive worry and so that's why over generalization tends to be
seen a lot in people who are experiencing depression social anxiety and generalized
anxiety disorder so if you catch yourself engaging in this over generalization what can you do about
it how do you how do you short-circuit this how do you stop um engaging in over-generalization
well the first is you need to be reckoning you need to recognize when you're engaging in over
generalization and and paying attention to those signs of over generalization beliefs now the thing
with over generalization that's useful is that there are usually some key words that indicate
when you're engaging in over generalization so some of these keywords are things like always
never all the time when you catch yourself using these words it's usually a red flag that you're
engaging in over generalization do i always get stuck at every red light every single time
do people never reach out to me to get together is my partner upset with me
all the time so you probably get a sense by the way i'm emphasizing those words
if you ask yourself those questions you know what the answer is you know that the answer isn't true
and so if you can find examples of any situations that show that these beliefs are not true all the
time what it does is it immediately changes the nature of the thought and you get to
a much more sort of realistic or balanced thought yes my partner is upset with me now
but for much of the past week we've gotten along pretty well
that's a much different type of thought than my partner is always upset with me
so the key point with over generalization the key point to remember is there are absolutely
no absolutes so watch out for absolute types of thinking and when you catch yourself over
generalizing ask yourself is this true and try to think of examples when things went well rather
than just the negative outcomes and so with over generalization if you can just find one example
that doesn't support the overgeneralized belief then what it does is it means that that entire
belief is untrue so if there's ever been a time where i didn't get stopped at a red light
what it means is that the belief that i always get stopped at a red light is completely untrue so
keep an eye out for those uh those key words to help identify and challenge over generalization
so i hope that makes sense i hope that gives you a better sense or idea of how overgeneralization
works and how it might contribute to feelings of depression or anxiety i'd love to hear
your thoughts and ideas about this so please leave me some comments in the comments section
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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