What Is Catastrophizing?

A mental health term you may have heard…

Disclaimer time: I am not any type of mental health, psychological, scientific, or medical professional.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

There’s a concept of cognitive distortion* (i.e. your brain warping stuff) known as catastrophizing.

*PDF link

(It’s also sometimes known as magnification.)

With catastrophizing, your brain automatically goes to the worst case scenario, and/or sees minor issues as massive ones (‘mountains out of molehills’)

An example would be assuming a speeding car is going to crash into you, even if it’s nowhere near you, or moving away from you…

…Or assuming if you do one task poorly, then it means you’re a failure at life in general.

Anyone can have moments of catastrophizing, but a lot of people with mental health problems — especially, but not limited to, Anxiety-related conditions — struggle with catastrophizing, often having a real affect on their day-to-day lives.

Bad Luck vs Catastrophizing

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