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The Cognitive Distortion of Mind Reading
Barbara Heffernan • December 3, 2024
Mind Reading: A Cognitive Distortion that can really get us into trouble.
We actually have a bias in our brains that inclines us towards mind reading, that I’ll explain below.
In today's blog, I'll explain what mind reading is so you can identify whether or not you do it, which areas you do it in and even how much you do it. We're going to talk about why it's a problem, and then I'm going to give you some techniques to overcome it.
Mind reading can lead us into emotional spirals of anxiety, depression, anger or grief for no reason whatsoever, because our mind reading is usually not accurate.
Mind reading is basically assuming you know the other person's motivations and intent behind something they say or an action they take, when you haven't asked for clarification. You don't have all the information, but you are just going to jump to a conclusion that you know what that behavior meant or you know what that comment meant.
You might also be aware of when people do this to you. This happened to me recently, and it can really drive me nuts when people will jump to a conclusion about what my motivation is when they haven't asked any clarifying questions!
When we put our own interpretations on somebody else's words or behaviors, we're actually blocking our understanding of the other person. We're actually limiting our ability to get to know the person if it's someone we want to get to know. And then, as I said, we're also sending ourselves into a whole emotional rollercoaster, which is not necessary.
Let's talk about some examples.
A coworker who is usually pretty friendly with you just rushes by you, and then you don't see them for the next two days. You think you did something wrong. You think they are mad at you. Weeks later, you find out it had nothing to do with you. They were dealing with an intense emergency. Yet you personalized it using your “mind reading skills” to decide what the problem was.
Another example is you send a friend a text and they don't respond. You immediately think they're mad at you, or you think something terrible happened to them. And while thinking something terrible happened to them may not sound like mind reading because it's not interpreting their motivation or intention, it actually is mind reading because you're putting your own behavior onto what you are expecting from them.
So if you're somebody who responds to texts quickly and this other person sometimes does, but sometimes doesn't, when you jump to the above conclusions, you are assuming that they live by your rules. That would lead you to believe that if they could text back, they would. So therefore something must have happened to them.
So a slightly more detailed example that I think will help you understand the problems with mind reading is a client of mine who had recently become the number two person in an organization and it was a new position. The organization was run by the owner and he was creating this number two position so that he could both expand the business but then also pull back and not have to work so much. But my client was frequently frustrated because he felt like he was being micromanaged.
Sometimes the owner of the business would jump in and try to fix an issue before my client felt it was needed. And then sometimes the owner was talking directly to the people who were reporting to my client. My client was interpreting this as “He doesn't think I'm good enough. He doesn't think I'm strong enough. He's probably unhappy that he hired me.”
My client was beginning to look for another job. A contributing factor here is that my client did
feel overwhelmed by the job. He wasn't feeling super confident. And his mind reading was contributing to this lack of confidence.
However, when he actually sat down with his boss, his boss started to tell him how happy he was that he had hired him. The boss said he was very pleased with my client's performance. At that point, my client began to ask a few clarifying questions.
So what was really going on is that the boss had never before delegated some of these responsibilities to anyone else, He was used to running the business by himself. He also had direct relationships with the employees who used to report directly to them, and the boss wasn't following the protocols that would be in his own best interest. So it actually had nothing to do with my client.
If my client didn’t tend toward Mind Reading, and if he didn’t have an underlying belief of not being good enough, he would have addressed the problem directly. He could have gone to his boss and said, “Hey, I thought you wanted me to take care of this. I noticed you jumped in. Is this something you don't want me to take care of?"
If you can ask questions in an open way where you are not putting your assumptions and rules on the other person, you will get valuable information.
Another real life example is from when I would work with couples. This would happen frequently. One person in the coupleship would mention something that the other one was sensitive to. And then the one who was sensitive to that would get furious because they would assume that their spouse or partner had mentioned that just to get under their skin. They wouldn't ask a clarifying question such as, “Hey, I'm really sensitive about that topic. Can I ask you why you're bringing it up?” That question wouldn't happen.
They would just get furious. The spouse would maybe not even know why they were so furious. The spouse would feel unheard because they were probably trying to say something relevant and the whole thing would blow up into a fight that might not be resolved for days.
That mind reading of attaching a negative motivation to the other person causes a lot of problems in couples. In fact, I think it was one of the core issues creating problems for couples.
Let me know if those examples made sense, by commenting below! I’d love to know!
How Mind Reading Comes From Our Negative Core Belief(s)
Recurring themes underlie a lot of our cognitive distortions. These themes reflect our negative core beliefs. They underlie the way we distort the world. Our negative core beliefs lead to rules and assumptions about the way we should be, the way others should be, and the way the world should work.
So for the client I discussed above who who filled in the number two position, it was very clear that his negative core belief was some form of “I'm not good enough.”
It had formed very early in his life and it was a framework that he put on the world. Negative core beliefs are like a lens through which we see the world.
So when things didn't go the way the client thought they should go, he would feel ”I'm not good enough.”
[In case you haven’t accessed
my free PDF Transform your Negative Core Beliefs. I will link it here.Many people have found it extremely helpful in identifying their core negative belief, and in learning techniques to turn it into a positive adaptive belief]
Investigating and healing the negative core belief is the inner core work that facilitates changing our thoughts and feelings in the current day. Sometimes cognitive behavioral therapy techniques do not go deep enough.
Here is an example to illustrate this:
If I grew up with a belief that "other people's needs are more important than mine," that "my needs don't count," or maybe even "I don't count," then I probably develop some rules and assumptions about the world that I should take care of other people's needs first. I might also have an assumption that if I am a nice and responsible person, I can never say no. If somebody else says they need something (whether they actually need it or not), I should do it.
And therefore, if I have that rule and assumption about the world, then if somebody says no to me, I might jump to the conclusion they're not nice or they don't like me. Rather than understanding they might just have too many conflicts, and that they're practicing self-care, I will personalize it in a way that reflects my negative core belief.
The human brain has a bias that contributes to mind reading. And that bias is that we think that other people think the way we do. And when they don't think the way we do, we're always surprised.
Because of this, we also assume that other people have the same rules and assumptions that we have.
This is problematic because it blocks our ability to see reality.
I saw this as a huge problem in the clients that I worked with who were in relationship with somebody who had a personality disorder (narcissistic personality disorder, for example). The client would keep going over and over, “But how could he have done that?” “How could she do that? I would never do that. If X, Y, and Z were the circumstances, I would never do that. So I don't think they would've done it. So something must have happened that made them do that. Maybe it was me. Maybe I didn't do something right.”
They were always in this confusion and investigation, almost like a detective story, investigating what could it have been that caused the person to act that way when these were the circumstances?
With somebody who is personality disordered, my guidance was always to accept that their brain works differently than yours. They do not think with the same rules and assumptions.
So that is an extreme example of somebody whose mind doesn't work the way yours works, but just be careful that you're not applying your framework onto somebody else.
Help to Change Mind Reading
If you do a lot of mind reading, what can help?
Number one is to fully acknowledge that you do it. Know when you're doing it. You might feel that you have all sorts of evidence that supports your conclusion, but leave a bit of a question mark in there.
And then the next thing to do is to emotionally regulate. Because generally if something happens and we go into one of those spirals of mind reading, we're getting anxious, depressed or angry. Simply taking a moment to emotionally regulate is extremely helpful.
So diaphragmatically breathe, ground. Pay attention to what's around you in the moment. Feel your feet on the floor.
Once you feel somewhat more calm, come back to the situation and think through “What questions do I need to ask this person? What additional information do I need before I come to a conclusion?”
And then, the last step, is to ask those clarifying questions (if you can, obviously!).
Ask them in an open, curious way where you're not prejudging the responses.
And if you are not in a situation to ask, hold back from coming to a conclusion!
Let me know if this was helpful - I would love to know!
Blog Author: Barbara Heffernan, LCSW, MBA. Barbara is a licensed psychotherapist and specialist in anxiety, trauma, and healthy boundaries. She had a private practice in Connecticut for twenty years before starting her popular YouTube channel designed to help people around the world live a more joyful life. Barbara has a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Columbia University and an MSW from SCSU. More info on Barbara can be found on her bio page.
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