Cognitive reframing refers to a person’s shift in mental perspective. When you change the way you look at something, the thing you look at changes. This change in perspective can modify how you think, feel and behave.
Reframing can have a positive or negative outcome. For example, you can also make your perception of a situation worse if you start comparing it to someone who has handled it much ‘better’.
When the process of reframing is used in a therapeutic setting to produce a positive outcome, this is called cognitive restructuring.
When a situation is perceived as much worse or much better than what would be considered ‘rational,’ it is labeled as ‘cognitively distorted‘.