Are Your Writing Beliefs Getting in Your Way?

Humans aren’t great at being objective. We underestimate the effects of the environment on people’s behavior, and we overestimate the degree to which others share our beliefs. We see patterns in randomness, and we favor information that fits what we already think. In short, our minds produce all sorts of distorted notions, many of which don’t reflect reality.

This observation lies at the heart of cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the best-known, best-studied psychotherapy modalities. CBT has been proven effective in treating a range of mental health conditions, and CBT techniques can come in handy in writing, too.

I first became aware of my own distorted writing thoughts during a particularly brutal long-term project. I was writing my psychology honors thesis, and I had naively assumed that I would have a draft finished by mid-December. By February, I was still struggling with the introduction.

The writing itself was hard enough, but that difficulty was further compounded by my thoughts:

I’m terrible at writing.
I’ll never be able to do this.
I never do anything right.
I might as well give up, since this project is basically a failure.

Were any of these true, though? I had thought, “I’ll never do this” about every major writing project, and my mentors didn’t believe that the thesis was a failure. Did my thoughts reflect reality, or were they simply the product of my negative emotions?

As I paid more attention to my distorted beliefs, I started noticing them in my students, too. I began to experiment with incorporating CBT techniques into tutoring, pointing out extreme thoughts and developing more balanced alternatives. I’ve found that the following four distortions crop up over and over.

Distortion #1: All-or-nothing thinking

I’m a good writer, or I’m a bad one. I can’t do it, or I can. This is easy, or it’s hard. These dichotomies are rarely accurate, and they can amplify unhelpful emotions. The words “never” and “always” are helpful clues. When you hear them, you can usually be sure that all-or-nothing thinking is at play.

Distortion #2: Jumping to conclusions

Within about a minute of opening an assignment, “Max” (a pseudonym) decided that he couldn’t do it. The task was too hard, he’d undoubtedly fail, and there was no point even trying.

I said–a little jokingly–that I was impressed by his ability to see into the future. It was amazing that he could know exactly how the assignment would go. Was he clairvoyant in other areas, too? Maybe he should be a magician.

I wouldn’t take this gentle teasing approach with everyone, but Max and I have known each other for a long time, and I knew he’d appreciate the humor. He smiled and rolled his eyes and conceded that yeah, maybe he should read a little more of the instructions before coming to such a definitive conclusion.

As it turned out, the assignment was not too hard, Max didn’t fail, and it took far less time than he expected. Funny how these things go…

Distortion #3: Emotional reasoning

Emotions have a way of coloring our view of the world. When I’m tired or upset, I can read a draft and think, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever written.” A few hours later, when I’m feeling better, I might look at that same draft and think, “Wow, this isn’t bad at all!”

The takeaway here is that our feelings affect our thoughts. That’s why I encourage my students (and myself) not to set too much store by the thoughts that bubble up during moments of stress. Writing down the thought or sharing it with someone else can also help us get a more objective read on the situation.

Distortion #4: Minimizing

“Do you ever feel proud of your writing?” I asked Ava.

She frowned slightly, puzzled. Writing was not her favorite activity, and her junior year of high school had been especially rough. Ava had no trouble describing the challenges she faced. Interestingly, though, whenever she overcame a challenge, it seemed to vanish from memory, replaced by yet another obstacle.

Having noticed this pattern, we started making a point of listing Ava’s successes each week. I wanted to make sure she gave herself credit for the many things she did well. I also suspected that if we focused slightly more on these strengths, her overall experience of writing would be more positive, and she would tackle new challenges with greater confidence and enthusiasm.

Ava quickly learned to name her successes with minimal prompting. We decided that because naming a success was itself a success, every success was a double-success. It’s successes all the way down!

A final thought

Traditionally, CBT has patients systematically identify, analyze, and rewrite problematic beliefs. This can be tremendously beneficial, but it can also feel exhausting in its own right. Some thoughts are stubborn and don’t readily give in to logic, and trying to shift thoughts can turn into a game of tug-of-war or whack-a-mole. As soon as you knock down one belief, another rears its head.

A therapeutic modality called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, pronounced “ACT”) presents an alternative to the CBT approach. Instead of changing thoughts, ACT focuses on accepting and de-fusing them–i.e., holding onto them less tightly and letting them fade into the background. If challenging distorted thoughts isn’t appealing or feasible, ACT might be a good option. Here are some resources to learn more:

About Lucy: I graduated from Stanford in 2024 with a degree in psychology and Slavic Studies. I currently live in Boston and work as a writing tutor with a focus on supporting 2e/neurodivergent students. I've been involved in the neurodiversity world since I was diagnosed with autism at age 18. I hope to pursue a PhD in psychology and develop evidence-based interventions to help neurodivergent students write. For tutoring inquiries, please check out my website!