NEWSLETTER #3
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THINKING ERROR
Understanding thinking errors…
Thinking errors or Cognitive distortions are biased perspectives we take on ourselves and the world around us. They are irrational thoughts and beliefs that we unknowingly reinforce over time.
These patterns and systems of thought are often subtle–it’s difficult to recognize them when they are a regular feature of your day-to-day thoughts. That is why they can be so damaging since it’s hard to change what you don’t recognize as something that needs to change!
Cognitive distortions come in many forms but they all have some things in common.
All cognitive distortions are:
- Tendencies or patterns of thinking or believing;
- That are false or inaccurate;
- And have the potential to cause psychological damage.
IDENTIFY THE ERRORS (signs)
1. All or nothing/polarized/black and white 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 + 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 expect the world to be different than it is. It can be seen as demanding particular achievements or behaviors regardless of the realistic circumstances of the situation
9. Labelling: You identify yourself or others with a negative adjective/identifier. Like, “i’m a failure”, “he’s an alcoholic”, “a loser, a fool”, “i don’t deserve anything” etc
10. Personalization: you blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for or you blame others and overlook ways that your own attitude/behavior might contribute to an issue
COPING SKILLS
1. Identify the Distortion: write down your negative thoughts to point out which of the errors you’re involved in. This will make it easier to think about the problem in a more positive + realistic way
2. Examine the Evidence: instead of assuming your negative thought is true, examine the actual evidence for it. Eg-If you feel that you never do anything right, you could list various things you have done successfully
3. The Double-Standard Method: instead of putting yourself down in a harsh way, talk to yourself in the same compassionate way you would talk to a friend with a similar issue
4. The Experimental Technique: do an experiment to test the validity of your negative thought
5. Thinking in Shades of Grey: instead of thinking about your problems in all or nothing extremes, evaluate things on a range of 0-100. When things don’t turn out the way you hoped, think about the experience as a partial success rather than a complete failure
6. Survey Method: ask people (who you trust) questions to see if your thoughts and attitudes are realistic
7. Define Terms: when you label yourself , ask yourself the definition of the identifier
8. Semantic Method: instead of telling yourself “ i shouldn’t have made that mistake” you can say “it would be better if i hadn’t made that mistake”
9. Re-attribution: instead of automatically assuming that you are “bad” and blame yourself entirely for an issue, think about the many factors that may have contributed to it. Focus on problem solving instead of using up all your energy blaming yourself and feeling guilty
10. Cost-Benefit Analysis: list advantages and disadvantages of a feeling, a negative thought or a behavior pattern to modify the defeating belief
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Amazing read!! Helps me a lot