In Episode 85 of Mind Tricks Radio, I sat down with Dr. Tyler Ralston to talk about a cognitive distortion that quietly shapes a surprising amount of mental anguish: Personalization. That conversation inspired this post. Personalization is the tendency to assume that external events, other people’s moods, or ambiguous situations are happening because of us. Usually, we add a negative interpretation.
- They didn’t invite me because they are tired of me.
- My boss looks irritated because I messed something up.
- They haven’t texted back because I am not interesting enough. It feels personal, so we decide it must be.
The mind is not doing this to sabotage us. It is trying to create certainty. Human beings are uncomfortable with ambiguity. When something unclear happens, the brain wants an explanation. “It’s my fault” can feel more stable than “I don’t know.” At least self-blame provides a narrative. It offers a sense of control. Unfortunately, that quick explanation often comes at a cost. Personalization tends to produce guilt, shame, resentment, and unnecessary strain in relationships.
For many people, this habit has deep roots. If you grew up in a highly critical or emotionally chaotic environment, you may have learned early that when something went wrong, you were the common denominator. Children are natural meaning-makers. If bad things happen around them, they search for reasons. Often the easiest conclusion is, “It must be me.” That lens can follow someone into adulthood. A partner’s quiet mood becomes evidence of failure. A colleague’s distracted expression becomes proof of incompetence. A delayed response becomes rejection. The interpretation feels automatic because it has been rehearsed for years.
So what helps? One of the simplest tools in cognitive-behavioral therapy is still one of the most effective: What is the evidence? Not the feeling. The evidence. Feelings are important signals, but they are not proof. Generating alternative explanations is equally powerful. Could your friend be overwhelmed? Could your boss be preoccupied? Could that driver who cut you off simply be distracted rather than targeting you personally? Sometimes it is helpful to test your assumption directly by asking for clarification. Other times it is enough to step back and notice the thought without buying into it. “This must be about me” is a thought, not a fact.
None of this means that nothing is ever about you. Sometimes it is. The goal is accuracy. Personalization tends to inflate your role from 10 percent to 100 percent. Healthy thinking aims for proportion. The next time you feel that familiar pull toward self-blame, pause. Ask whether you are responding to evidence or filling in uncertainty with an old story. You may find that the world is not reacting to you nearly as often as you think, and that you can put down responsibility that was never truly yours.
FULL EPISODE TRAJSCRIPT
Dr. Kaplan:
Hey, Tyler, welcome back. It’s great to see you.
Dr. Ralston:
Oh, you too, Aaron. Thanks for having me back. Glad to be here. By the way, congratulations on the publishing of your novel, getting your novel out.
Dr. Kaplan:
Oh yeah, thanks a lot. It’s coming out in April. I appreciate that.
What was the last time we met? It was maybe around last October or so. We were talking about hindsight bias, I think.
Dr. Ralston:
That sounds about right.
Dr. Kaplan:
Yeah, so today we have another interesting cognitive distortion to talk about. And I’m really looking forward to having this conversation with you because it comes up a lot in my practice. I know it’s a topic that comes up a lot for people.
We were talking before I started recording here. I know you mentioned you don’t necessarily use the term personalization, but the concept comes up a lot. So we’ll dig into that.
Personalization — I kind of look at this as the “don’t take things personally” idea. And the way I see it is this idea that people assume that external events or behaviors or comments — things that are happening — are happening because of you in some way, usually with some kind of negative bias. So people attribute things to themselves that may not actually be related to them. They feel bad about them.
That’s kind of the bottom line, how I see that as a definition. What do you think? Does that sound like a reasonable way?
Dr. Ralston:
Yeah, I agree. And I would just add that it can happen in very small day-to-day interactions and things. And it can also happen in bigger, broader ways with big events that are much more easily seen as having nothing to do with the person.
Dr. Kaplan:
Yeah. And we’ll take a look at some of those later — some of the smaller and bigger ones as examples — because I think that is very true.
I do want to make one point about this concept of personalization, which I think is where we get that term “don’t take things so personally.” One thing I’ve noticed — and I don’t know if you’ve seen this — is that it can be a little bit of a touchy subject for people sometimes.
Because when people are told “don’t take things personally,” I think sometimes people hear, “You’re not entitled to have your feelings or emotions about something that you’re feeling upset about.”
I want to make it clear that’s not what we’re talking about with personalization. Of course people are entitled to have feelings about things. If their feelings are hurt, they’re entitled to feel hurt. Sometimes people do things that aren’t the nicest things and people have feelings about them.
So that’s not personalization.
Personalization really is a cognitive distortion where you are perceiving something as happening that very possibly doesn’t have anything to do with you — and you’re taking it that way — and therefore you end up having all sorts of feelings that are not fun to have when maybe they’re not warranted given the actual situation. And that’s really what we’re talking about and what we want to dig into here.
Dr. Ralston:
I might add to that, if you don’t mind, Aaron, that there’s gradations of it too. It’s not only taking it personally when something doesn’t have anything to do with the person, but also assigning more meaning to themselves than there may actually be.
Sometimes there is a little bit that has something to do with them, but they’ll make their role bigger or their responsibility bigger than it really is. So it’s sort of a gradation.
Dr. Kaplan:
Yeah, I agree with that. So you could be involved in an event and something could happen and you could have some personal stake in it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the outcome of it or the way other people are responding is entirely due to you in some negative way.
So there are gradations of it, of course.
Dr. Kaplan:
I was thinking maybe we could talk about some examples of this so we’re not sort of in the clouds about the concept. I’ve written a couple down.
By the way, when I was doing those “Distortion of the Day” episodes that were under 10 minutes, I did do one about personalization. If listeners are interested in going back and hearing that, it’s sort of a fun thing that I did on a number of cognitive distortions. I probably recorded the personalization one about a year or year and a half ago.
So we’re going to be talking a little bit more academically today about it.
Let’s talk about social situations. Imagine you have a group of friends and you hang out together sometimes. There’s a flow of different friend groupings that do social events. Then you find out that some of those friends went out to dinner one night and they didn’t invite you.
And your thought is: “Okay, I didn’t get invited because they’re sick of me. They’re tired of having me around. They didn’t invite me because they don’t want me there. They specifically don’t want me there.”
So why is that personalization? Why could that be the case?
Dr. Ralston:
Well, there could be many reasons the person wasn’t invited. That’s just one possibility — that they’re sick of that person. But there could be many other things involved.
For example, something as basic as the group text didn’t go through. Or there was a power outage in the person’s area and they didn’t get the communication about the dinner — something practical like that.
Dr. Kaplan:
Yeah, or the friends went out to dinner to plan a surprise party for the person who wasn’t invited.
And that’s interesting because in that regard, it is about the person, but it’s not about them in the way they think. They’re not sick of the person. They’re planning something for them.
So it’s sort of like jumping to a conclusion. It’s also personalization — taking something on as related to who you are and being responsible for an outcome when there’s not necessarily clear evidence that that’s the case.
Dr. Ralston:
Exactly. There are numerous possibilities. They could be going out because they have something important to discuss that doesn’t involve you.
Dr. Kaplan:
Exactly. You don’t need to be involved with that.
So that would be an example: “They went out and didn’t invite me because of something having to do with me.” You’re personalizing it.
How about another example? You’re in a meeting. You have a boss in the meeting. The boss has a real sour look on their face. You’re observing it and your thought is, “The boss is unhappy with me and what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I’m causing my boss to look so serious and upset.”
Similar kind of thing, right?
Dr. Ralston:
Yeah, exactly. In that example, there can be many alternative explanations for the boss’s expression or demeanor.
He or she could be thinking about something unrelated to you or the meeting. It could even be a personal issue. There are any number of possibilities that could be causing that expression.
But when you say, “My boss is upset with me,” you’re personalizing something with no evidence to suggest that’s true.
Dr. Kaplan:
Right. Let’s say another one. You’re in high school orchestra. People get seated in different places. I know this because my son was in orchestra at one time.
A very accomplished cellist doesn’t get seated in the very front where the prime seat is. And the person thinks, “The orchestra leader doesn’t like me or doesn’t think I’m a good cellist. That’s why I’m not here. I’m not cutting it.”
How about that one?
Dr. Ralston:
It’s possible that’s the reason, but it’s also possible there are other reasons the accomplished cellist wasn’t seated in the front row.
It would be important to examine those possibilities. But initially, it would be taken personally if the person says, “The band leader doesn’t like me.”
Dr. Kaplan:
Exactly. Maybe the orchestra leader likes both of you. Maybe the other person had a strong quarter and they wanted to reward them. Maybe that person is having a hard time in their life and they wanted to give them something encouraging.
But you’re making the decision about you and something you did wrong. That makes it personalization.
Let’s try another one.
You come home and your partner is quiet, appears a bit grumpy, doing their own thing, not being the most pleasant. And you think, “My partner is acting like this because they’re mad at me. I did something wrong.” How about that one?
Dr. Ralston:
That’s a really common one in my practice. I work with many formerly abused women, and if someone is upset, people with that background often assume it must be because of them. They were blamed in the past.
And yet there could be many different reasons the partner is quiet. It might be about the person — but it might be any number of other things as well.
Dr. Kaplan:
Right. This comes up a lot in the age of instant gratification with social media and texting. You text someone and don’t get a reply within 10 minutes.
Have you seen that before?
Dr. Ralston:
Oh yeah, totally. People looking at their phone, waiting. They don’t get the text and they’re thinking, “Where’s the text?”
Dr. Kaplan:
Exactly.
Dr. Ralston:
I see it a lot with clients who are starting to date someone new. They want multiple daily communications. If they don’t get that, they think, “I must be unlovable,” or “I’m not good enough.”
When in reality, the other person is busy at work and will respond later.
Dr. Kaplan:
Right. So the personalization is reading into the delay and assuming intentionality — that they’re not texting you because there’s something wrong with you.
Dr. Ralston:
Yes.
Dr. Kaplan:
Here’s a last one I want to give, and this one is sort of humorous. This is a real example from a patient of mine from a while back. I don’t think he would have a problem with me sharing this, and even laughing at himself about it.
He had a newborn baby at one point several years ago. The baby was maybe three weeks old. The baby was crying constantly. He would pick up the baby, and the baby would cry even more when he picked it up. Nothing he could do would help the baby calm down.
That’s not entirely true — the baby would sometimes eventually calm down — but he felt very helpless because the baby wouldn’t stop crying a lot of the time.
He comes in and I say, “What’s going on?” He’s not getting sleep because he’s got this new baby. He says, “Oh, doc, I don’t know. The baby cries all the time.”
And I said, “Yeah, babies do that.”
He said, “Yeah, I don’t think my baby likes me very much.”
I said, “Why do you think that?”
He said, “Because he always cries when he’s around me. He doesn’t stop crying when I pick him up. He cries even more sometimes. So I think my baby doesn’t like me. My child doesn’t like me.”
Obviously, that’s humorous. We can see the ridiculousness of that logic, right?
Dr. Ralston:
Right.
Dr. Kaplan:
And yet it’s something so many of us humans do from time to time until we learn to do otherwise.
Dr. Ralston:
For sure. And as parents, we know how helpless you can feel with a newborn. It can be terrifying. They’re crying and you wish you could have a calm conversation and explain things, but you can’t.
So that would be personalization — thinking the baby is crying because they don’t like you. That’s absurd because they can’t possibly conceptualize that at that age.
Dr. Kaplan:
Exactly.
Dr. Ralston:
I’ve got a larger-scale example. If we’ve got a moment, I’ll share one briefly.
There was a woman who gave permission for this story to be in our book many years ago. She lived in the Bay Area during the 1989 earthquake when sections of the freeway collapsed. She was horribly traumatized.
She moved down to LA just in time to be there during the Rodney King riots. She was traumatized by that.
She thought, “I’ve got to get out of here. Where’s the most peaceful place I can live in the U.S.?”
She moved to the North Shore of Kauai in Hawaii and arrived just in time for Hurricane Iniki to decimate the island. After all of that, she began thinking that it had something to do with her — that she was bad luck, that she brought disasters with her.
It was large-scale personalization. Obviously, none of those events had anything to do with her, but she interpreted them that way.
Dr. Kaplan:
Perfect example.
“This is happening because of me. Everywhere I go, there’s a disaster.”
Taking something personally that clearly cannot possibly have anything to do with the person.
So why do we do this? We talk about cognitive distortions in general — humans employ them constantly. But why personalization specifically?
Dr. Ralston:
There are a variety of reasons. It depends on the person and their experiences.
In my practice, a lot of it comes from people being raised in abusive or controlling households. There were bad outcomes, and because of the abuse, they were blamed even though they didn’t have anything to do with it.
So they learned a pattern: when bad things happen, it must be because of me.
We often talk about it in the negative direction, but in another direction, people with narcissistic or antisocial traits might personalize positive outcomes — “This good thing happened because of me.”
So personalization can go both ways. But many of my clients learned it because they were blamed for things they were not responsible for. They internalized the idea that when something bad happens, it’s because of them.
Dr. Kaplan:
That’s a really good example.
In childhood, a lot of bad things happen around you. You’re looking for explanations. You’re the common denominator, so it’s easy to conclude, “It must be me.”
And often children are directly blamed for things that weren’t their fault. That’s what emotionally abusive parents do.
That ties into gaslighting — when someone repeatedly tells you something is your fault when it’s not true. You internalize it because you don’t have the psychological resources to challenge it. You take that idea with you into adulthood.
Dr. Ralston:
Another reason is that knowing something is easiest for the brain. Knowing something negative is second. Not knowing — uncertainty — is worst.
The brain wants to fill the gap. Filling it with “It’s because of me” is easier than sitting with “I don’t know why this happened.” People don’t tolerate ambiguity well.
Dr. Kaplan:
That’s a really good point.
Filling in the narrative — even negatively — feels easier than accepting uncertainty. If something feels understandable and controllable — even if it’s negative — that can feel better than something uncontrollable and ambiguous.
Dr. Ralston:
Exactly. People attribute uncontrollable events to themselves to create a sense of explanation.
Dr. Kaplan:
Let’s talk about the psychological and emotional costs of personalization. I think these could apply to a lot of cognitive distortions, but how do people typically feel when they personalize things, especially when they’re negative?
Dr. Ralston:
There are lots of costs. Guilt, shame, anger, social withdrawal, relationship strain. We could talk about any of those. There are many psychological costs.
Dr. Kaplan:
What about guilt? That’s a big one in my practice. I treat a lot of guilt, especially trauma-related guilt, and personalization is often a major component.
People take on way too much responsibility for their role in negative events — traumatic events particularly — but also non-traumatic events. They take on too much guilt and responsibility for negative outcomes. It’s a version of personalizing things.
Dr. Ralston:
It is huge. Take the baby example. If you’re a parent and you think your baby hates you, you’re going to feel like a lousy parent.
You’ll think, “I can’t even be a good parent. The baby cries every time it sees me.”
People feel guilty when they personalize negative things.
Dr. Kaplan:
Right. Or “I did something wrong at work. I’m a terrible employee. My boss is unhappy with me.”
Guilt is huge. What about shame?
Dr. Ralston:
With shame, if someone thinks, “I’m a great person,” but then something bad happens, there’s a gap between their self-view and the negative outcome. If they don’t tolerate uncertainty well, they fill that gap with, “This bad thing happened because I’m not good enough.” That becomes shame — a condemnation of the whole self.
Dr. Kaplan:
That’s a good moment to touch on the difference between guilt and shame. I see guilt as more situational — something happened and I’m blaming myself for it. Shame feels more like a core belief: “I’m not good enough. I’m worthless. I’m unlovable.” If someone carries core shame, it makes sense they’d personalize negative things more often, because that’s the lens through which they interpret events.
Dr. Ralston:
That’s well said. Shame and guilt often go together. Guilt is more specific — “I should have acted differently.” Shame is global — condemnation of one’s whole character.
Dr. Kaplan:
And there’s also anger. If you think your boss is sour because of you, you might move from guilt into anger: “What right do they have to be mad at me?” Or friends didn’t invite you, and now you’re angry at them. That can lead to social withdrawal.
Dr. Ralston:
Very common. One of the biggest areas that shows up is road rage. Driving is a social interaction without communication. People interpret being cut off as intentional — “They did that to me.” That personalization fuels anger.
Dr. Kaplan:
That’s a perfect example. There are all these pieces of metal driving down the road. None of them know who you are. And yet somehow it becomes personal.
Now, earlier you mentioned gradations. Sometimes something is partly about you. How do we look at that in a healthy way so a person doesn’t make it 100% about them?
Dr. Ralston:
CBT is about thinking accurately. Sometimes accurate thinking is, “Yes, this is 10% about me.” We want proportional responsibility. If someone turns it into 100%, that causes problems. It’s healthier to reflect: “What is my actual amount of involvement?”
Dr. Kaplan:
Exactly.
Back to the baby example — maybe the baby is crying because the sun is shining in its eyes and the father is holding the baby in that direction. That doesn’t mean the baby doesn’t like dad. It means the position is uncomfortable.
Or back to the boss example — maybe you ask afterward, “Did I do something wrong?” And the boss says, “You made a small inaccuracy, and I didn’t want to embarrass you.” That’s very different from “My boss hates me and I’m a screw-up.”
Dr. Ralston:
Right. Good example.
Dr. Kaplan:
Let’s talk about tools we use in therapy when personalization shows up. What is the evidence? That’s our favorite CBT question.
Dr. Ralston:
Emotional reasoning is huge. The employee sees the boss’s expression and feels anxious. The brain uses that emotion as evidence: “I feel anxious, so my boss must be mad at me.” Or “I feel guilty, so I must be guilty.” We want actual evidence, not feelings as evidence.
Dr. Kaplan:
Feelings are important, but they’re not evidence.
Just like in a courtroom — jurors don’t use feelings to determine guilt. They use facts.
Dr. Ralston:
Exactly. And we generate alternative explanations. If we don’t find solid evidence, what are other possibilities? That’s core CBT work.
Dr. Kaplan:
And instead of making assumptions, sometimes you can check in directly. Ask for clarification instead of assuming.
Dr. Ralston:
Yes. In my practice, we also write down the belief and revisit it later. Did it turn out to be accurate? Often it wasn’t. Testing out thoughts is key.
Dr. Kaplan:
Reality-checking with a trusted friend can also help.
Dr. Ralston:
And mindfulness approaches are helpful too. Instead of challenging the thought, you step back and observe it: “This is a thought.” You don’t have to engage with it. You can shift your attention to the present moment — “I’m putting avocado on toast.” The thought will eventually pass.
Dr. Kaplan:
I also use behavioral experiments. If you believe you repel people, test it. Go interact and observe actual responses. Keep track. See if people are truly recoiling from you, or if that belief isn’t supported.
Dr. Ralston:
Creating opportunities to test beliefs proactively is powerful.
Dr. Kaplan:
And I also explore childhood attachment patterns and shame-based core beliefs. If you grew up with critical parents who blamed you for everything, you might still be carrying that lens. But it wasn’t true then, and it’s not necessarily true now.
Dr. Ralston:
Exactly. Not carrying the past into the present.
Dr. Kaplan:
Great conversation, Tyler. Hopefully people can use this as a helpful tool to examine when they’re taking things personally and challenge those beliefs.
Dr. Ralston:
Always fun talking about this stuff. I really enjoy sharing ideas about it.
Dr. Kaplan:
Tyler, it’s great to see you again. Hopefully we’ll do this again soon.
Dr. Ralston:
Likewise. Thanks, Aaron.
Discover more from Aaron Kaplan, Ph.D. -Psychotherapy and Evaluation and Services
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.