Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Thinking Errors

The following is a list of distorted thinking patterns people make. The list describes different thinking errors people make. These are useful for identifying negative thinking patterns. We all think along some of these ways.

1. ALL OR NOTHING THINKING

Do you see things as either being black or white? Are you a total success a total failure? This could be called ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking. You must ask yourself ‘what is the evidence for saying that everything is wrong or nothing is right’. Some things may be wrong and not everything may be right.

2. OVERGENERALISING

If you make a mistake or fail at something, do you ever say to yourself ‘I never get anything right’? Just because you have failed at one thing doesn’t mean you will fail at everything. You are taking your feelings from one situation and colouring other situations in an equally bad way. Try to tell the difference between things which are really ‘bad’ or unpleasant, from those which you have coloured black, by ‘over-generalizing’.

3. MENTAL FILTER

Most of the events which take place in your life will be made up of good bits and bad bits. Do you find yourself concentrating on only the bad bits? This thinking error is like a mental filter, filtering out all the good bits and throwing them away, and keeping only the bad parts.

4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE

You may be convincing yourself that the good bits don’t count. This thinking error is a variation of the mental filter. If you recognize something which isn’t bad you discount it by saying that its not really good either. Remind yourself that filtering out good experiences and throwing them away only serves to deepen low mood. Discounting the positive is another way of focusing only on the bad experiences and another way to deepen depression.

5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

Do you find yourself predicting that things will happen, even though you have little or no evidence to support it? This is a very common thinking error, which most of us are guilty of at some stage or other. The easiest way to challenge this error is to look for the evidence.

You may also conclude that someone is reacting negatively towards you without bothering to check this out (mind-reading).

6. MAGNIFICATION OR MINIMALISATION

Do you find yourself exaggerating the significance of your imperfections or undesirable events? ‘I made a mistake, my reputation is ruined’. Or do you minimize your strengths and your achievements? ‘I passed the exam but only got a B’. Thinking this way is guaranteed to make you feel inferior – check the evidence.

7. EMOTIONAL REASONING

‘I feel guilty, therefore I must have done something wrong’. ’I feel fat, so I must be fat’. These are two examples of emotional reasoning – or ‘letting your heart rule your head’. Once more, to challenge this type of thinking error, look for the evidence – if you can’t find any you must realize that you are being emotional. Try to work out why you feel the way you do and then work out how you should be feeling.

8. SHOULD (OR MUST) STATEMENTS

If you ever say ‘I must pull myself together’ or ‘I should be enjoying this’, then you will make heavy demands on your emotions and may end up feeling like you failed if you are not living up to your high expectations of yourself. You simply tell yourself to stop trying to be perfect at all times.

9. LABELLING AND MISLABELLING

If things go wrong, do you find yourself sticking labels on yourself? If you row with someone do you think that you are a rotten person? If you don’t manage something, do you consider yourself to be hopeless? Labeling suggests that you are completely rotten or hopeless in this case, and leaves no room for more positive descriptions of yourself. Check the evidence again.

10. PERSONALISATION.
If you feel that ‘everything bad always happens to me’ or ‘it’s my fault that my family is upset it must be something I have done’, this is personalization. Unless you can prove to yourself that you are to blame for something by finding substantiating evidence, then this is the thinking error or personalization.

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