Catastrophize
Etymology
From “catastrophe,” Greek “katastrophe,” an overturning, from “kata-” (down) and “strephein” (to turn), plus the suffix “-ize.” The term was popularized by cognitive therapists such as Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck to name one of the classic cognitive distortions.
verb · /kuh-TAS-truh-fyze/
To imagine or treat a situation as far more disastrous than the evidence warrants.
What it names
A specific thinking trap — leaping from a small setback to the worst possible outcome as if it were the likely one.
Example
One missed deadline and he was already catastrophizing about losing the house.
Related idea
To catastrophize is to inflate a threat mentally; to mitigate is to actually reduce one. The catastrophizer treats a manageable risk as ruin instead of mitigating it.
See also