Thought-Related & Cognitive Symptoms in Adults: Signs and Solutions
Emotional and cognitive health are intrinsically linked. So when mental health conditions affect our well-being, both of these important parts of our inner lives can take a hit. Yet, while many people can detect signs of decline in emotional health, sometimes thought-related symptoms can be harder to pinpoint.
Forgetting things, struggling to concentrate, and having intrusive thoughts can be extremely worrying, especially if we don’t know what mental health condition is causing them. However, it may be relief to learn that all mental health conditions impact cognition to some degree, and therefore, many of these symptoms are treatable.
If you’re concerned that cognitive symptoms are the result of a mental health condition, a mental health professional can help you get to the root of these issues and provide guidance. This guide can also help you better understand thought-related symptoms in adults, as it covers:
- What thought-related symptoms are, and common examples
- A definition of “thought disorders”
- Signs you’re experiencing cognitive symptoms
- The thought-related symptoms caused by different mental health conditions
- Advice for coping with cognitive symptoms and treatment options
What Are Cognitive and Thought-Related Symptoms?
Cognition is the mental process behind functions like communication, learning, and understanding. Cognitive and thought-related symptoms occur when there are disruptions to normal cognition, caused by things like medications, sleep difficulties, physical injuries, and mental health conditions.1
Common thought-related and cognitive symptoms include:
- Memory problems
- Indecisiveness
- Overthinking
- Racing thoughts
- Intrusive thoughts
- Difficulty speaking and understanding
These experiences can be highly frightening, and some may fear that their symptoms are permanent. Fortunately, thought-related symptoms are often treatable and are rarely caused by a diagnosable thought disorder. To help you better understand what is classified as a “thought disorder,” we cover this definition next.
What Are Thought Disorders?
“Thought disorders” describe conditions in which someone experiences a disturbance to their thinking, whether this is how thoughts are expressed, controlled, organized, or processed.2
Thought disorders include things like schizophrenia and psychosis, as these are characterized by significant disorganization in thought, memory, speech, and perception.2
For most of the 1900s, thought disorders were studied mainly in the context of schizophrenia. However, experts now recognize that disordered thoughts can arise in a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including mania or depression. This means you can experience thought-related symptoms but not necessarily have a thought disorder.2
Later, we’ll explore the specific mental health conditions that feature thought-related symptoms.
Signs You’re Having Cognitive Symptoms
- Forgetting things in daily life, such as details about appointments, tasks, relationships, and events
- Feeling overwhelmed by and struggling to make decisions
- Ruminating over events, feelings, relationships, disagreements, and the future to a significant degree
- Jumping to the most extreme conclusions about things (catastrophizing)
- Having too many thoughts all at once (racing thoughts)
- Regularly experiencing unwelcome, unpleasant, or distressing thoughts involuntarily (intrusive thoughts)
- Feeling disoriented, confused, or dissociated from your surroundings
- Struggling to concentrate, whether you’re worrying about other things or simply have difficulty focusing
Understandably, cognitive symptoms can be very distressing, especially socially. You may struggle with paying attention, processing information quickly, remembering and recalling information, responding quickly, and initiating speech.10 Plus, these issues can create anxiety in social or work situations where there’s greater pressure to interact and perform.
If your symptoms can’t be explained by factors like poor sleep or side effects from medication, this could indicate that you have an underlying mental health condition.1 Next, we’ll explore common mental health diagnoses and the specific cognitive symptoms they can cause.
What Mental Health Conditions Cause Cognitive Symptoms?
Most mental health conditions typically cause cognitive symptoms in adults. Therefore, aside from emotions and behaviors, most mental health conditions impact our thoughts in some way. Whether it’s thought content itself, or thought pattern, style, or intensity, various mental health conditions differ in how they impact the way we think.
The following are some common mental health conditions and their impacts on cognition:
Anxiety
While people with anxiety often experience a range of physical symptoms, these are usually accompanied by a range of thought-related symptoms. For example, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) can cause rumination and excessive worrying, as well as lead someone’s mind to go blank.4 Anxiety can also cause attention and concentration problems, which can manifest because of overriding worries or as a standalone symptom.3
Depression
Although depression is known as a mood condition, it can cause a range of thought-related symptoms. For example, people commonly report thoughts of worthlessness and guilt, which may perpetuate other symptoms relating to mood and activity. Further, people with depression are also unfortunately at greater risk of having suicidal thoughts.5
As well as causing particularly distressing thoughts, depression can make it more difficult to concentrate, make decisions, and process information. Therefore, those with depression may find it harder to adapt to situations and take all the steps needed to get something done. These tasks are known as “executive functions,” and are an important element of well-being in daily life.6
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
As its name indicates, OCD involves obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive and repetitive urges, thoughts, and mental images. Compulsions are mental events or actions that someone feels they must perform to alleviate the distress caused by obsessions.7
So, as may be clear, thought-related symptoms are a significant component of OCD. In fact, they’re the main cause of the distress and what drives the compulsive behaviors. Common obsessions include those around contamination, harm, taboos, sexuality, symmetry, ordering, and counting.7
In fact, among the many theories about the potential causes of OCD, there is a cognitive model that suggests obsessional anxiety is driven by certain cognitive impairments. These impairments include:7
- Believing one has a responsibility to stop bad things from happening, even when it’s impossible
- Giving thoughts more power than is realistic
- Being preoccupied with controlling, suppressing, or changing one’s thoughts
- Overestimating the likelihood of bad things happening to oneself or loved ones
- Perfectionistic tendencies, like fearing mistakes or having extremely high standards
- Struggling to tolerate a degree of uncertainty or ambiguity in life
These cognitive tendencies may make people more vulnerable to developing OCD and experiencing related thought-related symptoms. Plus, people with OCD may also have difficulty concentrating because of their symptoms.3
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
BPD is another condition that is primarily a mood disorder, impacting someone’s sense of identity, relationships, and behaviors. However, the condition may also cause certain thought-related symptoms, such as:8
- Beliefs about being abandoned by others
- Impulsive behaviors driven by sudden, intense thoughts
- Thoughts of self-harm, suicidality, and harming others
- Dissociation
- Black and white thinking, also known as “splitting”
Yet, even though a condition like BPD typically has a cognitive impact, this doesn’t mean it can be treated in the same way as some other mental health experiences. Experts believe BPD is caused predominantly by trauma, therefore it usually calls for a distinct treatment approach.
Schizophrenia
As mentioned earlier, the most significant element of schizophrenia is its impact on thought and cognition. This is because it’s marked by hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thought and speech. Therefore, people with this condition may also experience impairments to their memory, executive function, and processing speed.9
As schizophrenia can be categorized as a thought disorder, it is distinct from the other conditions listed. Treatments tends to focus more predominantly on someone’s disorganized thoughts, while this approach may not be suitable for other mental health conditions.
If you’ve noticed symptoms of poor mental health and cognitive issues, but you’re unsure what condition you might have, you could speak to your healthcare provider or take a self-test.
Coping With Cognitive Symptoms
There is a wide range of support options for people experiencing thought-related symptoms, whether this means getting a diagnosis, receiving therapy for cognitive issues, or implementing self-care practices.
In terms of self-implemented support, you could manage cognitive symptoms through simple, but effective steps such as:1
- Making a to-do list each day
- Utilizing planners and reminder apps
- Asking people to speak more slowly and in short sentences
- Requesting adjustments to your assignments if you’re in school or college
- Prioritizing sleep to give your brain as much rest as possible
- Reducing the number of commitments and responsibilities you have
Of course, these lifestyle changes should not be your primary treatment; they are simply ways to cope day-to-day. In order to address the root of your symptoms, you may benefit from seeking out cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or another type of cognitive health support.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Thought-Related Symptoms in Adults
CBT is one of the “big three” therapeutic approaches (alongside psychodynamic and humanistic). As its name suggests, CBT focuses on our cognition and behavior, and how these contribute to poor mental health. For example, CBT practitioners are typically interested in cognitive distortions, automatic thoughts, and underlying beliefs that may be contributing to your mood and behavior.11 The following is a breakdown of how these factors can contribute to thought-related symptoms in adults.
- Cognitive distortions: These are errors in logic that are common in people with mental health conditions. For example, disqualifying positive experiences and only focusing on the negative, assuming we can “mind read” the thoughts of other people, and focusing on the worst possible outcomes.
- Automatic thoughts: These are our immediate cognitive responses to events, and are often distorted, mistaken, or unrealistic. For example, thinking He must hate me, when an acquaintance appears not to notice you in the street. When thoughts like this are not challenged, they can perpetuate low mood, low self-confidence, and avoidance behaviors.
- Underlying beliefs: These are the rules and expectations relating to ourselves and others that shape the way we look at the world. Some example beliefs include The world is an unsafe and scary place, and I will never be good enough. Beliefs like these can drive our automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions, so it’s extremely helpful to uncover them.11
As CBT is so focused on the ways we think, it’s often a very useful treatment for cognitive symptoms. However, other therapies may be necessary if there are underlying experiences and factors that are causing the mental health condition in the first place.
Other Therapies for Cognitive Symptoms
Often, addressing the core causes of issues may be more effective than treating the cognitive symptoms that appear on the surface.
For instance, psychodynamic, EMDR, and trauma-focused therapies may be more suitable for people who have trauma in their past. This is bcause adverse experiences in childhood and in relationships can increase the risk of mental health issues and resulting cognitive problems.12
Additionally, some people may opt for exposure therapy if they have anxiety or phobias, as this can address unhelpful and intrusive thoughts that perpetuate distress.
Another option is somatic therapy, which helps connect mind and body in order to release historic pain and increase emotional awareness. This approach may be beneficial for people who struggle with thought-related symptoms but aren’t in touch with their emotions on a deeper level.
And finally, there is the broad category of humanistic therapy, which can involve a wide range of approaches. At its center, the humanistic stance believes that people have an innate ability to heal and grow. This stance can be very empowering for people who feel stuck, oppressed, or out of touch with their inner wisdom.
Based on each of these approaches, though your thought-related symptoms may be the first thing you notice, therapy doesn’t necessarily have to target them first to be effective.
Mission Connection: Get Support for Cognitive Symptoms Today
Thought-related symptoms in adults can feel highly distressing. You may worry that they’re a sign of something serious, or feel frustrated that you can’t seem to get your mind under control. If the information in this article has resonated with you, Mission Connection can help.
Our compassionate team has experience with treating a range of mental health conditions and helping people build tools for long-lasting healing. We also offer a wide variety of therapies across our several facilities as well as online.
Even though your thoughts may be making you feel like no one could understand what you’re going through, at Mission Connection, we make it our goal to appreciate your experiences. Reach out to us today if you’re ready to take the first step towards better cognitive well-being.
References
- National Cancer Institute. (2021, April 8). Cognitive symptoms. https://www.cancer.gov/rare-brain-spine-tumor/living/symptoms/cognitive
- Hart, M., & Lewine, R. R. J. (2017). Rethinking Thought Disorder. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 43(3), 514–522. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbx003
- Hallion, L. S., Steinman, S. A., & Kusmierski, S. N. (2018). Difficulty concentrating in generalized anxiety disorder: An evaluation of incremental utility and relationship to worry. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 53, 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.10.007
- Munir, S., & Takov, V. (2022). Generalized anxiety disorder. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441870/
- Chand, S., & Arif, H. (2023, July 17). Depression. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430847/
- Cartreine, J. (2016, May 6). More than sad: Depression affects your ability to think. Harvard Health Blog. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sad-depression-affects-ability-think-201605069551
- Brock, H., Hany, M., & Rizvi, A. (2024). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553162/
- Chapman, J., Jamil, R. T., & Fleisher, C. (2024, April 20). Borderline personality disorder. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430883/
- Hany, M., & Rizvi, A. (2024, February 23). Schizophrenia. NIH.gov; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539864/
- Trivedi, J. (2006). Cognitive deficits in psychiatric disorders: Current status. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 48(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.31613
- Chand, S. P., Kuckel, D. P., & Huecker, M. R. (2023, May 23). Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470241/
- Mann, S. K., Marwaha, R., & Torrico, T. J. (2024). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559129/
