Aaron Beck first proposed the theory behind cognitive distortions and David Burns was responsible for popularizing it with common names and examples for the distortions.<\/p>\n
1. Filtering.<\/strong><\/p>\n We take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. For instance, a person may pick out a single, unpleasant detail and dwell on it exclusively so that their vision of reality becomes darkened or distorted.<\/p>\n 2. Polarized Thinking (or \u201cBlack and White\u201d Thinking).<\/strong><\/p>\n In polarized thinking, things are either \u201cblack-or-white.\u201d We have to be perfect or we\u2019re a failure \u2014 there is no middle ground. You place people or situations in \u201ceither\/or\u201d categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and situations. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.<\/p>\n 3. Overgeneralization.<\/strong><\/p>\n In this cognitive distortion, we come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence. If something bad happens only once, we expect it to happen over and over again. A person may see a single, unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.<\/p>\n 4. Jumping to Conclusions.<\/strong><\/p>\n Without individuals saying so, we know what they are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, we are able to determine how people are feeling toward us.<\/p>\n For example, a person may conclude that someone is reacting negatively toward them but doesn\u2019t actually bother to find out if they are correct. Another example is a person may anticipate that things will turn out badly, and will feel convinced that their prediction is already an established fact.<\/p>\n 5. Catastrophizing.<\/strong><\/p>\n We expect disaster to strike, no matter what. This is also referred to as \u201cmagnifying or minimizing.\u201d We hear about a problem and use\u00a0what if<\/em>\u00a0questions (e.g., \u201cWhat if tragedy strikes?\u201d \u201cWhat if it happens to me?\u201d).<\/p>\n For example, a person might exaggerate the importance of insignificant events (such as their mistake, or someone else\u2019s achievement). Or they may inappropriately shrink the magnitude of significant events until they appear tiny (for example, a person\u2019s own desirable qualities or someone else\u2019s imperfections).<\/p>\n With practice, you can learn to answer each of these cognitive distortions.<\/p>\n 6. Personalization.<\/strong><\/p>\n Personalization is a distortion where a person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to the person. We also compare ourselves to others trying to determine who is smarter, better looking, etc.<\/p>\n A person engaging in personalization may also see themselves as the cause of some unhealthy external event that they were not responsible for. For example, \u201cWe were late to the dinner party and\u00a0caused<\/em>\u00a0the hostess to overcook the meal. If I had only pushed my husband to leave on time, this wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n 7. Control Fallacies.<\/strong><\/p>\n If we feel\u00a0externally controlled<\/em>, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. For example, \u201cI can\u2019t help it if the quality of the work is poor, my boss demanded I work overtime on it.\u201d The fallacy of\u00a0internal control\u00a0<\/em>has us assuming responsibility for the pain and happiness of everyone around us. For example, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you happy? Is it because of something I did?\u201d<\/p>\n 8. Fallacy of Fairness.<\/strong><\/p>\n We feel resentful because we think we know what is fair, but other people won\u2019t agree with us. As our parents tell us when we\u2019re growing up and something doesn\u2019t go our way, \u201cLife isn\u2019t always fair.\u201d People who go through life applying a measuring ruler against every situation judging its \u201cfairness\u201d will often feel badly and negative because of it. Because life isn\u2019t \u201cfair\u201d \u2014 things will not always work out in your favor, even when you think they should.<\/p>\n 9. Blaming.<\/strong><\/p>\n We hold other people responsible for our pain, or take the other track and blame ourselves for every problem. For example, \u201cStop making me feel bad about myself!\u201d Nobody can \u201cmake\u201d us feel any particular way \u2014 only we have control over our own emotions and emotional reactions.<\/p>\n 10. Shoulds.<\/strong><\/p>\n We have a list of ironclad rules about how others and we should behave. People who break the rules make us angry, and we feel guilty when we violate these rules. A person may often believe they are trying to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn\u2019ts, as if they have to be punished before they can do anything.<\/p>\n For example, \u201cI really should exercise. I shouldn\u2019t be so lazy.\u201d\u00a0Musts<\/em>and\u00a0oughts<\/em>\u00a0are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When a person directs\u00a0should statements\u00a0<\/em>toward others, they often feel anger, frustration and resentment.<\/p>\n 11. Emotional Reasoning.<\/strong><\/p>\n We believe that what we feel must be true automatically. If we feel stupid and boring, then we must be stupid and boring. You assume that your unhealthy emotions reflect he way things really are \u2014 \u201cI feel it, therefore it must be true.\u201d<\/p>\n 12. Fallacy of Change.<\/strong><\/p>\n We expect that other people will change to suit us if we just pressure or cajole them enough. We need to change people because our hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.<\/p>\n 13. Global Labeling.<\/strong><\/p>\n We generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment. These are extreme forms of generalizing, and are also referred to as \u201clabeling\u201d and \u201cmislabeling.\u201d Instead of describing an error in context of a specific situation, a person will attach an unhealthy label to themselves.<\/p>\n For example, they may say, \u201cI\u2019m a loser\u201d in a situation where they failed at a specific task. When someone else\u2019s behavior rubs a person the wrong way, they may attach an unhealthy label to him, such as \u201cHe\u2019s a real jerk.\u201d Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. For example, instead of saying someone drops her children off at daycare every day, a person who is mislabeling might say that \u201cshe abandons her children to strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n 14. Always Being Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n We are continually on trial to prove that our opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and we will go to any length to demonstrate our rightness. For example, \u201cI don\u2019t care how badly arguing with me makes you feel, I\u2019m going to win this argument no matter what because I\u2019m right.\u201d Being right often is more important than the feelings of others around a person who engages in this cognitive distortion, even loved ones.<\/p>\n 15. Heaven\u2019s Reward Fallacy.<\/strong><\/p>\n We expect our sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if someone is keeping score. We feel bitter when the reward doesn\u2019t come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cognitive Distortions Aaron Beck first proposed the theory behind cognitive distortions and David Burns was responsible for popularizing it with common names and examples for the distortions. 1. Filtering. We take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. For instance, a person may pick out a single, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427],"tags":[150,476,485,1107,1090,844,842,498,626,649,158,1109,1106,846,1093,1108,528,489,490,634],"class_list":["post-3666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-427","tag-abstract","tag-addiction","tag-adel","tag-catastr","tag-conclusion","tag-confidence","tag-coping","tag-creative","tag-depressed","tag-depression","tag-examination","tag-filtering","tag-jum","tag-limitations","tag-overgeneralization","tag-polarized","tag-seragpsych","tag-seragpsych-com","tag-thinking","tag-wonderful","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3667,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions\/3667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}