Unhelpful Thinking Styles: Mind Reading

Constantly using unhelpful thinking styles can cause a fair amount of emotional distress. Unhelpful thinking styles are different patterns of thinking we get stuck with when experiencing uncomfortable emotions. Unhelpful thinking styles often become automatic and are usually cause several negative thoughts and statements, which only make you feel way worse! Once you start to understand your unhelpful thinking styles it can become a lot easier to challenge them and to have a different outlook (often making you feel a lot less crappy). 

No one is immune to unhelpful thinking styles – even Psychologists have unhelpful thinking styles. I could give lots of examples of times where I got stuck with certain unhelpful thinking styles. Below we are going to go through one of the many unhelpful thinking styles and some strategies on how to challenge it.

MIND READING

Mind reading is when we assume we know what someone else is thinking. For example, in a social situation I might assume someone doesn’t like me (based of no real evidence). This thought is likely to leave me feeling anxious and upset.  When I’m feeling that way, I’m less likely to engage in conversations and be my normal self. In fact, I may avoid conversation with that person all together! Mind reading is an unhelpful thinking style because it provides no benefit, it allows us to spiral with anxious thoughts and cause us to feel emotionally distressed.

If you find yourself often assuming what people are thinking I ask you to be more curious of those thoughts. Try to think super analytically, like you are a detective on an important investigation. What evidence do I have that they don’t like me? Would this evidence stand up in court? What else could be going on here? What assumptions have I made? If you said to a judge “I think that person committed a crime” without hard physical evidence, do you think they would charge the person? Absolutely not!! We need physical evidence, none of this “I think….” Or “I assumed…” mind reading stuff!

Sometimes we need to take a step away to be able to think analytically. If you find yourself getting stressed and spiralling with a thought, go do some form of self-care or practice mindfulness. Once you’re feeling less heightened begin to examine the evidence by writing things down. If you’re stuck for ideas on how to practice mindfulness have a look at some of our previous blog posts (click for our Mindfulness blog here)

It's a lot easier said than done! If you find yourself stuck with mind reading or just wanting further support, feel free to contact us on 8838-8687 or book an appointment online & come see one of our friendly Psychologists.