Ten cognitive distortions

Ten cognitive distortions

Ten Cognitive Distortions

All-or-nothing thinking. This refers to your tendency to evaluate personal qualities in extreme, black-or-white categories. It causes you to fear any mistake or imperfection because you will then see yourself as a complete loser, and you will feel inadequate and worthless.

Overgeneralization. You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Mental filter. You pick out a negative detail in any situation and dwell on it exclusively, thus perceiving the whole situation as negative.

Disqualifying the positive. This is the tendency to transform neutral or even positive experiences into negative ones. For example, upon receiving a compliment, you say to yourself, “They're only being kind.” This is one of the most destructive forms of illogical thinking. The price you pay is the inability to perceive the good things in life.

Jumping to conclusions. You jump to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation. Two examples: Mind reading. You assume that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out. Fortune telling. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.

Magnification and minification. You exaggerate the importance of a negative event or a mistake. For example, if your bus is late and you have an important meeting you tell yourself, “I can't take this!” This is an exaggeration: you are taking it, so you can. Conversely, you may inappropriately shrink positive personal qualities or events until they appear trivial.

Emotional reasoning. You take your emotions as evidence for the truth. For example, you say, “I feel inadequate. Therefore, I must be a worthless person.” Or, “I feel enraged. Therefore, this person must be totally in the wrong.”

Labeling and mislabeling. This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing something as an error, you attaché a negative label to yourself or someone else. “I'm a loser.” “He's no good.” The illogic in this way of thinking is that your life is a complex and ever-changing flow of thoughts, emotions and actions; you are more like a river than a statue. To label yourself or another person is overly simplistic.

Personalization. You assume responsibility for a negative event when there is no basis for doing so.

Should statements. You try to motivate yourself by saying, “I should do this” or “I must do that.” These statements cause you to feel pressured and resentful. Paradoxically, you end up feeling apathetic and unmotivated. When you direct “should” statements toward others, you will usually feel frustrated. When the all-too-human performance of other people falls short of your expectations, you'll feel bitter and self-righteous. You'll either have to change your expectations to approximate reality or always feel let down by human behavior.