0 to think about the worst things that could possibly happen in a situation, or to consider a situation as much worse or much more serious than it really is:
He says that adolescents tend to catastrophize things.
Cognitive behaviour therapy teaches you not to catastrophize, not to take a minor setback and let it escalate into "nothing will ever go right."
She sees many patients who "catastrophize" events in their life - they stress over worst-case scenarios to the point where they can't function.
It's important to have realistic expectations about the amount of sleep you will be able to get and not to catastrophize during a poor night of sleep.
You can go through an entire day eating really healthily, then you eat one cookie and catastrophize that and say "oh, it's not worth it".