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Cognitive Distortions
The Ten Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts
1. All or nothing - thinking
You see things in black and white categories If a situation falls short of
perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a
spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, 'I've blown my diet completely.'
This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of
ice cream!
2. Overgeneralization
You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career
reversal as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as
'always' or
"never" when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly
upset when he noticed bird dung on the windshield of his car. He told
himself, 'Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!'
3. Mental filter
You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that
your vision of all of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that
discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments
about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them
says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and
ignore all the positive feedback.
4. Discounting the positive
You reject positive experiences by insisting they 'don't count.' If you do
a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn't good enough or that
anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positive takes the joy out
of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions
You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your
conclusion.
Mind reading: Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that
someone is reacting negatively to you.
Fortune telling: You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a
test you may tell yourself, 'I'm really going to blow it. What if I
flunk?' If you're depressed you may tell yourself, 'I'll never get
better.'
6. Magnification
You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you
minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called
the
'binocular trick.'
7. Emotional reasoning
You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things
really are: 'I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very
dangerous to fly.' Or
'I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person.' Or 'I feel angry. This proves
I'm being treated unfairly.' Or I feel so inferior. This means I'm a
second-rate person.' Or 'I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless.'
8. "Should statements"
You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them
to be. After playing a difficult piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told
herself, 'I shouldn't have made so many mistakes.' This made her feel so
disgusted that she quit practicing for several days. 'Musts,' 'oughts' and
'have tos' are similar offenders.
'Should statements' that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and
frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or
the world in general lead to anger and frustration: 'He shouldn't be so
stubborn and argumentative' Many people try to motivate themselves with
shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished
before they could be expected to do anything. 'I shouldn't eat that
doughnut.' This usually doesn't work because all these shoulds and musts
make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr.
Albert Ellis has called this 'musterbation.' I call it the 'shouldy'
approach to life.
9. Labeling
Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying
'I made a mistake.' you attach a negative label to yourself: 'I'm a
loser.' You might also
label yourself 'a foal' or 'a failure' or 'a jerk.' Labeling is quite
irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings
exist. but 'fools,' 'losers,' and 'jerks' do not. These labels are useless
abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration, and low self-
esteem.
You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the
wrong way, you may tell yourself: 'He's an S.O.B Then you feel that the
problem is with that person's 'character' or 'essence' instead of with
their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you
feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves little room
for constructive communication.
10. Personalization and blame
Personalization occurs when you hold yourself personally responsible for
an event that isn't entirely under your control. When a woman received a
note that
her child was having difficulties at school, she told herself, 'this shows
what a bad mother I am,' instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the
problem so that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman's
husband beat her, she told herself, lf only I were better in bed, he
wouldn't beat me.' Personalization leads to guilt, shame, and feelings of
inadequacy. Same people do the opposite. They blame other people or their
circumstances for their problems, and they overlook ways that they might
be contributing to the problem: 'The reason my marriage is so lousy is
because my spouse is totally unreasonable.' Blame usually doesn't work
very well because other people will resent being a scapegoat and they will
just toss the blame right back in your lap. It's like the game of hot
potato - no one wants to get stuck with it.
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