Mental Filtering – How it Negatively Impacts our Life and what to do about it.
What is Mental Filtering (also known as Negative Filtering)?
Do you ever find yourself only focusing on the negative during the week? Have you ever looked back at parts of your life and wondered to yourself, “My gosh! I was so negative about things, when I really had some good things going too.” Have you ever had a friend or family member that you felt was chronically negative about their life and just missed anything positive?
It’s common for us to have “a bad day” when things just don’t seem to go our way. Life happens. But when this becomes a consistent pattern, you should become a bit more concerned and might be experiencing a cognitive distortion called mental filtering.
Mental filtering is when we evaluate an event or experience based on a few select details while ignoring or minimizing other pieces of information. In other words, people struggle to see the whole picture and have trouble accurately predicting possible positive and negative outcomes. People simply do not see the positives and only see the negatives.
For example, people who are suffering from depression commonly are only able to see the negatives in their lives and are more quickly to recall unhappy experiences in the past than positive ones. Individuals suffering from career stress may see small mistakes as huge threats to a promotion or salary raise. A person suffering from unhealthy perfectionism would fixate on a single small flaw.
Examples of Mental Filtering
My food delivery order was wrong! Everything about today is a disaster.
I have been eating healthy all month but messed up last night. I’ll never be in shape, and I should just quit.
I said something awkward and everyone heard it. I’m horrible in social situations.
No matter what I say to my spouse, it’s never enough. Our relationship is ruined.
While my boss gave me an outstanding rating for my performance review, I’m fixated on the one negative comment made and am fuming.
Geez….I have a typo on page four of the presentation. This is a complete failure. Might as well quit now.
What types of disorders and issues are connected to Mental Filtering?
Mental filtering is commonly found with several different issues or disorders that people face. When we begin to have chronic negative filtering, it can really impact our own emotional well-being and our relationships. Some issues and disorders include depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, perfectionism, and career stress. It can even negatively impact our friendships and family connections, when we are always overly negative. It is hard to catch sometimes, like many cognitive distortions, which is why therapy can clarify how our thinking influences our feelings.
Strategies to Reduce Mental Filtering
It is important to note that many of these cognitive distortions probably had a survival purpose a very long time ago. It probably was beneficial to a person’s survival to only focus on the negatives (i.e., threats). This helped us to avoid being killed by a bear or bitten by a snake for example. And in some contexts of the modern world, this STILL may be beneficial in select contexts. Even so, if you find yourself struggling with mental filtering, there are ways to change. In many cases, these interventions are part of a larger approach in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT Therapy has been shown to be very effective in helping us change our thinking which in turn helps influence our feelings.
Positive Affirmations and Logs
If we find ourselves being overly negative in an area of our life, quietly calm yourself and write down several positive events or successes that happened to you. For instance, let’s take the example about the food delivery being wrong above. Instead of “Everything about today is a disaster,” you could write down three positive events that happened. Maybe something like “I had several really polite customers today”; “The commute home was faster than usual”; and “At least I got an extra packet of my favorite hot sauce.” By doing this on a regular basis, it helps us break up only seeing the negative.
Focus on the Larger Picture
When we find ourselves fixated on a specific negative event with our emotional juices flowing, catch yourself and take a deep breath. Then…zoom out and look at the larger context around this single event. Does this one thing matter that much? Will it be as upsetting in one hour? Tomorrow? Next week? Try to find other pieces of information and events that are positive or even neutral. Are you under-weighting their importance? Write out on a piece of paper the WHOLE of what you are feeling and seeing.
If you are having difficulty with mental filtering or finding everything negative in your life, consider Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at Sequoia Counseling Group. Schedule a free 15-minute consultation. In Las Vegas, we have both in-person and virtual sessions. We also offer virtual sessions in California, Nevada, Georgia, and Virginia. Reach out today. You don’t have to suffer alone.
About The Author
Dr. Philip B. Gnilka is the Clinical Director and Founder of Sequoia Counseling Group, a boutique mental health practice that serves clients in Las Vegas, NV. His experience as a tenured professor in mentoring students about counseling approaches and theories reinforced his passion for helping individual clients directly. He specializes in anxiety, stress management, and perfectionism.