Cognitive Distortions:

http://www.bipolarworld.net/Graham/graham34.htm

Cognitive Distortions:

1. All or nothing thinking – the tendency to think in absolute terms, like ‘always’, ‘never’ and every.
2. Overgeneralization – taking isolated situations and applying them in a wide generalized way.
3. Mental filter – focusing exclusively on one, usually negative aspect and ignoring the larger, more positive picture.
4. Discounting the positive – continually ignoring positive aspects for arbitrary reasons.
5. Jumping to conclusions - assuming something negative where there is actually no evidence to support it. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
a. Mind reading - assuming the intentions of others
b. Fortune telling - guessing that things will turn out badly
6. Magnification – usually magnifying the negatives and minimizing the positives – my psychiatrist nicknames it ‘Awfulisation’.
7. Emotional reasoning – making decisions on how you feel not based on objective reality.
8. Should statements – when you concentrate on what you feel you should do or ought to be rather than the reality of the situation. (Often called ‘wishful thinking’).
9. Labeling – related to overgeneralization, where you assign labels to someone rather than specific behavior. One example could be rather than saying – I made a mistake, you say I am a loser because of the mistake.
10. Personalization and blame – assuming yourself or others are the cause of things when that may not have been the case.