10 Cognitive Distortions | Julia Kristina Counselling

1.	All or nothing thinking: You look at things in absolute, black and white categories.
2.	Overgeneralization: You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3.	Mental Filter: You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.
4.	Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities “don’t count.”
5.	jumping to conclusions: (A) Mind reading- you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence for this; (B) Fortune Telling- you arbitrarily predict things will turn out badly.
6.	Magnification or Minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or you shrink their importance inappropriately.
7.	Emotional Reasoning: You reason from how you feel: “I feel like an idiot, so I really must be one.” Or “I don’t feel like doing this, so I’ll put it off.”
8.	“Should Statements”: You criticize yourself or other people with “Shoulds” or “Shouldn’ts.” “Musts,” “Oughts,” “Have tos” are similar offenders.
9.	Labeling: You identify with your shortcomings. Instead of saying, “I made a mistake,” you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk,” or “a fool,” or “a loser.”
10.	Personalization and Blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that your own attitudes and behavior might contribute to a problem.

Mood Therapy (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1980; Signet, 1981)