The Hidden Psychology of Cognitive Dissonance
How one therapist made peace with inner conflict and helps others do the same.
Updated December 1, 2025 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
Cognitive dissonance is everywhere — but it’s not well understood. When we’re aware of it, it can be a powerful motivator for behavioral change and enhance insight. When we're not, it can cause us to rationalize harmful behavior and keep us stuck in the same painful cycles.
Many of us live with the mental and emotional strain of holding conflicting truths about ourselves and our world. This experience, called “cognitive dissonance,” shapes much of our subconscious decision-making , as well as our feelings and beliefs about ourselves and others.
We can be confronted with cognitive dissonance at various points throughout our lives — in childhood , when so many of us are taught that we are not acceptable as is, in adolescence and adulthood, when we receive and buy into messages from society about what success looks like that run counter to what we know about, or truly want for, ourselves.
We can also experience cognitive dissonance in certain types of upbringings — not only in situations of overt abuse or neglect, but also within highly image-conscious families, or families where the narrative about a particular situation varies widely from the truth.
Whether it occurs in an intimate relationship, in a family system, or in a society plagued by the discrepant expression of its purported values, the effects of cognitive dissonance can be just as damaging.
As a racially ambiguous woman adopted internationally into a white family with three older biological sons, cognitive dissonance shaped much of my upbringing.
What I understand now — what exacerbates cognitive dissonance is that in our attempt to alleviate it, we tend to create and organize around false narratives that shape our and others’ realities.
In addition to experiencing this firsthand, I have seen this in my therapy practice with individuals whose families have reinforced various negative beliefs — a byproduct of cognitive dissonance — that have then gone on to shape their lives in significant ways.
These are parentified children who learn their needs are too much (the seemingly incompatible messages being: I have needs, my needs are too much), and who then go on to have trouble with boundaries as adults. They are also the children who learn to avoid their feelings because no one in their family ever modeled distress tolerance (I experience negative feelings, negative feelings are bad and should not be expressed). Or, they are the children who grow up questioning their intellectual abilities because they were told they weren’t smart and continue to be treated this way (I think differently; my differences are a problem).
How does this happen?
Because cognitive dissonance is an emotional disturbance, we instinctually react to it as if it were any other uncomfortable emotion — with aversion.
We are quick to conclude the dissonant messages in an attempt to rid ourselves of the mental and emotional strain of inner conflict. In doing so, we often combine the conflicting messages to form easy and inaccurate statements — about ourselves or others — that we then organize around as if they are the truth.
This leads to confirmation bias — the tendency to interpret new information according to existing beliefs or theories — and over time, the formation of deeply embedded and reinforced beliefs about ourselves and others that may, in fact, be quite inaccurate.
In my upbringing, two messages I consistently had mirrored back to me were: 1) I am different, and 2) to belong, I must not be different.
The result is that I collapsed into a version of myself that accommodated the two competing messages as if they were one coherent one: To belong, I must minimize what makes me different.
With very little information as to how to style my very curly and textured hair, I straightened it, then kept straightening when I received compliments and better treatment — in my home and community — for how I looked.
I was given information about my cultural background, but discouraged from exploring my identity or sharing it with others.
I was told that, as the youngest girl in a family full of boys, I was special and that I would be safe, then shown that my value came only from how I looked and what I did for those around me, and my safety was deprioritized in my family.
When faced with what seem like contradictory messages, we attempt to reconcile our dissonance in various ways that distort our thinking:
We may minimize, rationalize, or generalize some of the messaging we receive (“it’s not that bad,” “it only happens sometimes,” “if it’s true in my family, it must be true everywhere”).
(To learn about other ways cognitive dissonance leads to distorted thinking, I recommend learning about cognitive distortions.)
We may also become dissociative, adhering to the false narrative that has been contrived at the cost of our ability to be present, authentic, and attuned to ourselves and others.
As a therapist, one of the primary ways I help my adult clients overcome dissonance and its resultant belief system is to move from either/or thinking — thinking that simplifies the truth — to both/and thinking — thinking that creates room for complexity. To do so, we examine my clients’ competing beliefs, place the beliefs in context, and come up with a more integrated and up-to-date interpretation.
For example, I might work with a client to reconcile the following: 1) I have needs, and 2) my needs are too much.
We would first normalize that everyone has needs. Then, we would spend time understanding how the second belief, the belief about their needs being too much, came to be. Note how I am not denying the belief. We are simply placing it in context to understand that in the client’s family of origin, this was the case. Finally, we come up with a new, more integrated belief:
“I have needs, and while for some people my needs may be too much (together unpacking how in the family of origin this person’s needs were too much), I am capable of meeting my own needs — and finding others who are also able to support me, who don’t think my needs are too much.”
Something to note: when we do not do our own work to examine the ways we react to cognitive dissonance, we create more of it for others by collapsing our realities into easy narratives that distort the truth. This is especially damaging to children, who are inherently vulnerable to their parents and may subconsciously take on their worldview.
Adults doing their own work to hold the complexity of competing beliefs create more space for those around them — of all ages — to be who they are without forcing others into relational collapse.
In my experience, this is where healing happens — not by eliminating the dissonance, but in learning to interpret it with honesty, compassion, and discernment.
If we can learn to stay with the discomfort of seemingly incompatible truths, we can learn from them in ways that help us grow, that turn us toward each other — rather than away. When we can do this, we are then better able to build relationships, families, and societies that no longer demand smallness and misbelief in exchange for peace.
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Mirella Stoyanova, LICSW, is a therapist, writer, and recovering perfectionist who writes about what it takes to heal ourselves and our world.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.