Cognitive distortions are ways in which the mind can create false or inflated beliefs that distort a person’s perception of reality. These habitual thought patterns contribute to negative self-talk, stress, anxiety, and depression. In visually classifying and acknowledging these recurring thoughts, they are easier to recognize, and therefore regain control of. This project is a multi-part series of illustrations made with the intent of presenting this aspect of cognitive therapy and affliction of the human psyche in a digestible way.
Project Goals
Contribute to the network of artists that use their work to create awareness around mental health
Find ways of sharing concepts of cognitive therapy that may not be accessible to people to whom therapy is not
Visually communicate an intangible and unquantifiable set of information
Research & Interpretation
This project involved sifting through scientific journals, in-person interviews, recording and analyzing my own experiences, and conversations with a cognitive therapist. Each distortion is presented separately on a single card, rather than stacked or bound, because that is how they seem to occur in the mind making them difficult to differentiate from one another.
Each illustration attempts to put a face to these incorporeal, but still organic, experiences in order to make them more recognizable. During the research process, I began drawing these curvy, unnatural but relatively human figures that I called ‘ghouls’ as a way to express how I was doing each day. These developed into the colorful depictions of the cognitive distortions seen in this project.
