A Cure for Catastrophizing

“There were many terrible things in my life, and most of them never happened.” — Michael Montaigne

Catastrophizing: “Everything is ruined"

Catastrophizing is the tendency to jump to negative conclusions and assume a bad outcome. My patient, Juliet, was a hardwired catastrophizer. Whenever she encountered an ambiguous or challenging situation, she assumed the worst. If an old friend didn’t wave hello across a crowded room, she assumed the person no longer liked her. If her mother didn’t return her call within 20 minutes, she worried about a medical emergency. If her boss scheduled a meeting with her, she was convinced she was being fired. When her dog wandered into the neighbor’s yard and didn’t immediately come when she called, she worried he had been hit by a car.

Albert Ellis, who developed rational emotive behavioral therapy, has studied the topic of catastrophizing. He called this irrational behavior awfulizing: When a person believes that “a bad, unfortunate, or inconvenient circumstance is more than bad, it is the worst, it could be 100 percent rotten.” In his work, Ellis added awfulizing with other irrational behaviors including low frustration tolerance of self and others, in addition to life downing.

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Here is why catastrophizing is bad for you: Negative spiraling

When we catastrophize, we fixate on the worst possible outcome and treat it as likely, even when it is not. Overestimating the probability of a negative situation fuels irrational worry and turns a minor setback into a definitive dead-end. The result is hopelessness, frustration, and avoidance. The ultimate result of catastrophizing is missing out on opportunities and experiences that bring us joy and meaning.

Here is what you can do about it: How to find some middle ground

To counteract this doomsday mindset, Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, suggests a simple exercise called “Put It in Perspective.” As soon as negative spiraling kicks in:

Step 1: Play out the worst-case scenario.

Step 2: Play out the best-case scenario.

Step 3: Consider what’s most likely to happen.

Between the two extremes, the best and the worst thing that could happen, you’re more likely to find the most realistic outcome.

As this exercise helps us understand, it is not the incident itself but the negative interpretation of the incident that leads to catastrophic thinking and the subsequent snowballing of negative emotions. The key is to untwist these cognitive distortions and recognize that the mountain we face may in fact be a molehill or at least more of a Mount Pleasant than a Mount Everest.

This mindset isn’t toxic positivity. It’s deliberate optimism.

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