When applying cognitive behavioral therapy, take note of the following cognitive distortions:
- All-or-nothing thinking. Also called “dichotomous thinking”. You evaluate qualities in extreme, black-or-white categories. This is unrealistic because qualities are rarely dichotomous. It breeds perfectionism and discrediting because actions will never match the exaggerated expectations.
- Overgeneralization. You conclude that something will happen over and over again. Without overgeneralization, a single affront is just temporarily disappointing. With overgeneralization, a single affront will be seriously disturbing.
- Mental filter. Also called “selective abstraction”. You perceive an entire situation as negative because of a single negative detail.
- Disqualifying the positive. You transform neutral or even positive experiences into negative ones.
- Jumping to conclusions. You jump into a negative conclusion without enough evidence.
- Mind reading. You make an assumption about what people think of you and you don’t verify this because you’re so convinced about it.
- Fortune teller error. You predict that something bad will happen to you and take it as a fact even if it is unrealistic.
- Magnification and minimization. You magnify your faults interpreting them as disasters, while you minimize your strengths.
- Emotional reasoning. You use your emotions as evidence for truth. Emotions are reflections of your thoughts. If you have distorted thoughts, you have invalid emotions.
- Should statements. You pressure yourself or othes with should and must statements, which lead to apathy and frustration. Failing to meet our standards result to negative emotions.
- Labeling and mislabeling. You create a completely negative image of yourself, another person, or an event based on errors (e.g. I am a born loser). It is irrational because you can’t equate yourself or another person with one thing. Mislabeling also uses inacurrate and emotionally heavily loaded words.
- Personalization. You assume responsibility for a wrong event with no real basis. This causes a lot of guilt. This is irrational because you can influence others or events but not control them.
Use these distortions when practicing the Triple-column technique.
References
Burns, D. (2012). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009UW5X4C/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0