Cognitive Distortions

also known as "Twisted Thinking"

This is one of the main areas of focus for Cognitive Therapy.

Sometimes we are not aware of what we are thinking.

And we often confuse our feelings with thoughts.

One way to tell the difference is that a feeling could be described in one word

For example: angry, frustrated, confused, resentful, despairing, etc.

Thinking might use more words, such as:

            "not again!" or
            "I�m not going to be ok!" or
            "this will never change!" and
            "the world is out to get me" etc.

here are 10 forms of twisted thinking:

• all-or-nothing thinking (everything is black or white, nothing in-between)

• overgeneralization (seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using terms such as "always" or "never")

• mental filtering (picking a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively)

• discounting the positive (rejecting positive experiences by insisting they "don't count")

• jumping to conclusions (arbitrarily concluding that someone is reacting negatively to you based on no actual evidence [mind-reading], or predicting ahead of time that things will turn out badly [fortune-telling])

• magnification (exaggerating the importance of your problems and shortcomings)

• emotional reasoning (assuming that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are)

• "should" statements (telling yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be)

• labeling (an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking, e.g., instead of "i made a mistake," you think "i'm a total loser," or "failure," or "jerk," etc.)

• personalization/blame (holding yourself personally responsible for an event that isn't entirely under your control, or blaming other people or your circumstances for your problems while overlooking ways you yourself might be contributing to the problem)

We can all do one or more of these distortions. I is almost normal to do this immediately when something goes wrong.

It can take effort to have awareness of what we are doing and that it isn't very helpful.

We can make a bad situation even worse.

Can we begin to understand how cognitive distortions are affecting our lives, our relationships, and hindering our success and enjoyment?

Many have.

Why not you too?