Cognitive Distortions: Mental Filter

By Dr. Andrea Zorbas

Most of us have used a mental filter in many areas of our lives. It may have been work, school, relationships, or even our own abilities. A mental filter is similar to overgeneralizing where you focus your attention on one negative piece of information and filter out everything else.

Examples of Mental Filters

• Can you think of a time where your romantic partner did something hurtful and then apologized and tried to make up for it, but you filtered out all the times when they have done nice things for you and focused on the one negative time?

• Or that time when your boss gave you a criticism and you only focused on that criticism, forgetting all the times where she told you positives about your performance.

So how do you deal with Mental Filters?

The first step is noticing that you are doing it. By being able to say to yourself, “I’m filtering out all the positives and just focusing on this one negative thing”. Then remind yourself of the positives to balance out your thinking.