Kevlar for the Mind: Understanding cognitive distortion can help troops limit its effects - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Kevlar for the Mind: Understanding cognitive distortion can help troops limit its effects

Humans have a knack for making themselves feel bad by engaging in cognitive distortions.

For example, a service member who once hesitated making a critical decision on the battlefield may begin to tell himself, “I will not be able to make quick decisions in the future when my troops rely on me.” This is an example of overgeneralization, a common cognitive distortion: A person takes a mistake, mishap or less-than-optimal outcome in one isolated situation and starts to believe that he will have the same outcome in similar future situations. For the most part, it’s outside of our conscious awareness. Nevertheless, maladaptive thought patterns wreak havoc on your mood and behaviors, causing problems with your loved ones and fellow service members, and interfering with the confidence and mental focus you need during training and on the battlefield.

Some other common cognitive distortions:

• All-or-none thinking. A person thinks in absolute terms such as “always,” “never” and “every.” For example, a service member new to the military has a bad experience with a noncommissioned officer. He tells himself, “All NCOs are abusive and don’t care about my situation.” This leads to frustration, wanting to give up, and anger.

• Filtering. A person magnifies the negative details of an event, filtering out all the positive aspects. Say a service member misses one point during his land navigation test but hits the other nine. Instead of focusing on the fact that he scored a 90 percent, he can’t stop thinking about the one he missed.

• Jumping to conclusions. Humans have an uncanny ability to read other people’s thoughts and predict the future … or so we think. We jump to conclusions when we believe we have someone or a situation figured out without knowing all the details. To make things worse, someone who jumps to conclusions usually interprets others’ thoughts or predicts future events as being negative.

Remember, you don’t have a crystal ball or some special gift to read people’s minds. Check the facts first.

• Personalization. People who engage in personalization accept responsibility for events over which they have little or no control. For example, an NCO gets news that his former platoon is having a difficult time under a new NCO. Instead of considering that the troops may be reacting to the leadership style of the new NCO, or a couple of new “bad egg” recruits are throwing off the balance of the entire group, he blames himself for poor leadership and mentoring in the past.

Like it or not, cognitive distortions are part of who we are. The trick is to understand and recognize them and make corrections when possible. If you are aware and vigilant, you can minimize the impact these cognitive “Negative Nellys” have on you.

Bret A. Moore is a clinical psychologist who served two tours in Iraq and is the author of “Wheels Down: Adjusting to Life after Deployment.”

Email kevlarforthemind@militarytimes.com. Names and identifying details will be kept confidential. This column is for informational purposes only. Readers should see a mental health professional or physician for mental health problems.