Catastrophising
Jumping from a setback or an uncertain situation to the worst outcome, treating it as likely, and treating it as unbearable. Typical sentence: ‘If this goes wrong, we’re finished.’
What drives it
It is an anxious bid for control: by rehearsing disaster, the person hopes not to be caught off guard. It also recruits other people’s help and reassurance.
How it shows
Work
A small error becomes a story ending in job loss or company failure within three sentences: ‘If this client leaves, we’re done.’ Late-night emails, demands for contingency plans for remote risks, and a team that learns to soften bad news so as not to set them off.
Relationships
A partner not answering for an hour becomes an accident or an affair. A child’s poor grade becomes a ruined future. Listeners feel pulled to reassure, and reassurance works only briefly.
Self
Your thoughts run as a chain of ‘and then…’ that ends somewhere awful, and your body is already reacting to the end of the chain. You can’t estimate the actual probability.
What tells it apart
Anticipation: Anticipation names a realistic risk, plans for it, then lets it go, and the planning lowers anxiety. Catastrophising inflates the probability, and no amount of planning settles it.
Vulnerability to harm or illness schema: The schema is a standing expectation of disaster on themes of health, money or safety; catastrophising is the mental move itself, which can occur on any theme in anyone under stress.
Generalised anxiety: Generalised anxiety means chronic, hard-to-control worry across many areas for months; catastrophising can be an isolated habit in an otherwise steady person.
A test
Ask ‘what is the most likely outcome, and how would you cope with the worst one?’; a catastrophiser struggles with the first and freezes on the second.
Questions to carry
- Asked for the most likely outcome, what does the person say, and how do they picture coping with the worst?
- Which small setback did I turn into the end of everything, and what happened in the end?
How strong the research is
strong
Where it comes from
Albert Ellis, 1960s; Aaron T. Beck, 1970s; Michael Sullivan and colleagues, 1995 (Pain Catastrophizing Scale)
Sources
- Aaron T. Beck, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (1976)