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Re-Post: 056718
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999
Subj: cognitive distortions summary
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hi all
cognitive distortions may manifest
as clinical depression in individuals or
as negative thinking in society in general
either way it is a catch 22 and a vicious circle that,
in my humble opinion,
needs to be exposed for the sham that it is
following is a summary from one of my favourite books ...
janet
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Definitions of Cognitive Distortions
1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black and white categories.
If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total
failure.
2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending
pattern of defeat.
3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it
exclusively so that your vision of all reality become darkened, like the
drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting
they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way you can maintain
a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though
there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
a. Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting
negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
b. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out
badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already
established fact.
6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the
importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement)
or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own
desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). 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 it, therefore it must be true."
8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and
shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be
expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The
emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward
others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization.
Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself:
"I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you
attach a negative label to him: "He's a goddam louse." Mislabeling involves
describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally
loaded.
10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative
external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
Table 3-1, "Feeling Good", by David D. Burns, MD
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janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit perky, parky .
pd: 54/41/37 cd: 54/44/43 tel: 613 256 8340 email: [log in to unmask] .
a new voice: the nnnewsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/janet313/ .
a new voice: the bbbook: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/wordbook/ .
a new voice: the wwweb site: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/ .
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