Every decision you make and every emotional reaction you have passes through a set of mental processes that the majority of people never stop to examine. This process is also at the heart of how you interpret every situation and how accurately you can name what you’re feeling in the moment.
These are all part of what’s known as cognitive awareness, and for most of us, it runs in the background without any major disruptions. But certain conditions can interfere with how you think, how you make decisions, how you relate to others, and how well you function in day-to-day life.
To better understand, this page covers:
Cognitive awareness is the ability to identify and understand your own mental processes. This includes:
The term is sometimes used in psychology and education, but it doesn’t have a single universally accepted clinical definition. Instead, it can be understood as an umbrella concept that encompasses several established psychological constructs.
These constructs each describe a different aspect of awareness of your own mind. The three below cover the main ground, and most people are stronger in some than in others.
Psychologist John Flavell defined metacognition as knowledge and cognition about cognitive phenomena.[1] In everyday terms, this would mean the ability to think about your own thinking.
Here is where metacognition is used:
The two parts of metacognition are knowing how your mind works, known as metacognitive knowledge, and being able to monitor and adjust your thinking as it happens, known as metacognitive regulation.
A simple analogy is that knowledge means knowing you concentrate badly after lunch. Regulation is moving your hardest work to the morning because of this.
Cognitive insight is the ability to step back from your own beliefs and consider that they might be wrong. The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale measures this across two areas:[2]
Healthy cognitive insight involves high self-reflectiveness and low self-certainty.[3] This is because you’re open to questioning your own thinking but also not assuming your first interpretation is always right.
In practice, that might mean feeling sure a colleague ignored you on purpose, and still being willing to re-examine what happened before acting on it.
Emotional awareness is the ability to identify what you’re feeling and name the emotion. This sounds relatively simple to most of us. If you’re angry, you can quite easily name the anger you’re feeling. But this is a skill that varies between people.
For example, some people struggle to distinguish between frustration and anger. They tend to be responses to subtly different things, but the two emotions can feel very similar.
Building the vocabulary to name what you feel is one of the foundations of healthy cognitive awareness, because you can’t work with an emotion that you haven’t identified.
Cognitive awareness is something that develops through experience and environment, rather than being something you “have” or “don’t have.” Several different factors can contribute to how strong your cognitive awareness is.
Environments that encourage self-reflection and examining your own reasoning are strong contributors to cognitive awareness. For example, classrooms that ask students to explain how they reached an answer can help build cognitive awareness.
Metacognitive strategies can be taught, and research links them to more independent and adaptive learning.[1] But if a person hasn’t experienced these types of environments, they have less to draw on.
Going through difficult experiences can influence cognitive awareness in both directions. For example, adversity that is processed with support and in the right way can deepen self-understanding. Adversity that is unprocessed, especially if the adversity happened within childhood, can impair cognitive awareness.
Research has found that adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are linked to lower cognitive abilities in adulthood.[4] One possible reason is that a child in a problematic home spends their attention on staying safe, which leaves little for learning to observe their own mind.
Cognitive awareness isn’t only a skill that you develop through experience. It also has a biological foundation rooted in neuropsychology.
One important study found that metacognitive ability was associated with gray matter volume in the right anterior prefrontal cortex.[5] This was also independent of how well people performed the task in the study.
This suggests that the ability to reflect on our own thinking has a home within the brain that’s separate from intelligence or cognitive function.
The prefrontal cortex is also the area of the brain most associated with executive function, which includes aspects like planning and self-monitoring. These cognitive skills overlap with cognitive awareness because monitoring your own thinking is part of what the prefrontal cortex does.
This also lines up with the fact that younger adults are still developing their capacity for self-reflection, as the prefrontal cortex is one of the last brain regions to fully mature.[6]
A number of mental health conditions can also play a large role in cognitive awareness.
Research on rumination in depression shows that some people strongly believe that analyzing why they feel depressed will eventually produce the answers they’re looking for.[7]
Instead, this is a metacognitive failure because they feel unable to step back from the ruminative process or view it as harmful. The rumination can then worsen or deepen the already existing depression.
Anxiety takes over cognitive awareness by directing attention toward perceived threats.[8] This means there’s less capacity available for self-reflection or forming an accurate evaluation of the situation. If worry feels like productive thinking, then the worry will continue.
Cognitive models of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that people develop negative appraisals of themselves after the traumatic event.[9]
These appraisals may focus on ideas like “I will never recover” or “I will never be the same again.” It may also focus on the PTSD symptoms themselves, which can cause results like “these intrusions mean I’m losing my mind.”
In those with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the cognitive awareness difficulty is linked to self-monitoring. Research has found that those with ADHD are more likely to overestimate their own abilities, especially in areas like attention.[10] For example, someone with ADHD may believe they are performing better than objective measures suggest.
Cognitive insight is impaired in psychosis, with research showing low self-reflectiveness and high self-certainty.[3] The person is less likely to question their own conclusions and more confident that their interpretation is accurate.
There is also something called the insight paradox, which is important to understand in the context of psychosis and cognitive awareness. Research has found that if someone has the awareness that they’re dealing with a psychotic condition, they’re more likely to show higher rates of depression.[11] This is mediated by feelings of hopelessness, as well as internalized stigma.
The person knows they have a serious mental illness, and that knowledge itself adds to their distress.
AMFM is here to help you or your loved one take the next steps towards an improved mental well-being.
In some cases, cognitive awareness skills can be developed through activities like self-reflection and journaling. These don’t need to be part of formal treatment, but just something you do for yourself.
Building habits that help you notice your own thinking patterns can produce positive change and psychological insights. For some people, this may be enough. But there are signs that personal practice isn’t enough, and that professional support is needed.
For example, if you find yourself repeatedly unable to step away from negative thoughts, or if impaired awareness is affecting your personal life, these are prompts to seek assessment.
If you feel as though the impaired cognitive awareness is connected to any of the mental health conditions covered above, this is another strong reason to reach out for assessment.
For some, outpatient therapy can be enough to start building these skills. But if the cognitive awareness difficulties are severe, if the condition behind them hasn’t responded to outpatient treatment, or if symptoms of psychosis are part of the picture, a higher level of care may be the right step.
Residential treatment offers something that outpatient can’t: a full pause from the demands of daily life. Instead of fitting therapy around your week and returning to the same environment that’s reinforcing the patterns, you step into one that’s built entirely around your recovery. The skills covered in the next section are practiced daily, in a setting where the clinical team can monitor progress and adjust treatment in real time.
For someone who has been dealing with this in silence, unable to manage daily life while a mental health condition takes over, this kind of focused environment could be exactly what’s needed to make a full recovery.
If therapy is the right next step for you, understanding what it involves can help it feel less daunting. Several psychotherapy approaches target cognitive awareness directly, as well as treating any underlying conditions.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) aims to build cognitive awareness through a tool called the thought record. Here, you’ll identify the situation, the automatic thought that comes with it, the emotion that follows, and then examine the evidence for and against the thought.
Repeatedly working through this kind of process enables you to learn how to catch the automatic thoughts as they arise and deal with them, rather than allowing them to take control.
Metacognitive therapy targets the beliefs you hold about your own thinking rather than the content of the thoughts themselves. For example:
This therapeutic approach is still relatively new, but the results so far are promising, especially for those with anxiety and depression.
MBCT was specifically designed to increase metacognitive awareness and prevent depressive relapse. The main skill it teaches is something called decentering, which means learning to observe thoughts as temporary mental events, rather than facts about reality.
Research found that when metacognitive awareness increased, depressive relapse rates dropped considerably.[12]
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has four main modules, with one of them being mindfulness. This aims to build awareness by teaching you to observe, describe, and participate in the present moment without forming any judgment.
This is the foundational skill that helps to support the other three DBT modules, and it’s something that’s revisited throughout the therapy.
A Mission For Michael (AMFM) provides treatment for adults experiencing various conditions. Psychosis support is a phone call away – call 866-478-4383 to learn about our current treatment options.
See our residences in Southern California’s Orange County & San Diego County.
Take a look at our homes on the east side of the Metro area in Washington County.
View our facilities in Fairfax County, VA within the DC metro area.
If impaired cognitive awareness has been affecting how you function and the condition behind it needs more support, AMFM (A Mission For Michael) Mental Health Treatment is here to help you take the next step.
We offer an intimate, focused mental health treatment experience for adults in home-like settings that are carefully maintained to be peaceful, comfortable spaces. AMFM Mental Health Treatment provides the full spectrum of care, including residential and outpatient treatment programs.
Our programs are designed to give you the space and clinical support to build self-awareness, alongside direct treatment for the condition driving the difficulty. Our team of expert clinicians believes in treatment persistence and will personalize your treatment plan so you can achieve lasting, life-changing outcomes.
Our locations in California, Minnesota, and Virginia accept insurance and are in-network with most major providers. To check your insurance coverage for mental health care, simply complete our confidential online verification form or call us at 866-478-4383.
If anything on this page has helped you see your own thinking patterns more clearly, that awareness is a strong starting point for personal growth. Reach out to us if you would like to start the admissions process or learn more about how we can support your mental well-being. Our compassionate team is available 24/7 to answer your questions and provide guidance with no obligation.
100% Confidential
No Commitment
Instant Results
At AMFM, we strive to provide the most up-to-date and accurate medical information based on current best practices, evolving information, and our team’s approach to care. Our aim is that our readers can make informed decisions about their healthcare.
Our reviewers are credentialed medical providers specializing and practicing behavioral healthcare. We follow strict guidelines when fact-checking information and only use credible sources when citing statistics and medical information. Look for the medically reviewed badge on our articles for the most up-to-date and accurate information.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know at info@amfmhealthcare.com
