DAVID BURNS TEN COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Dr Ruth Benjamin

DAVID BURNS’ TEN COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Dr. Ruth Benjamin Clinical Psychologist

THIS IS AN OPTICAL ILLUSION A COGNITIVE DISTORTION. WE WILL KEEP SHOWING YOU MORE OF THESE

ALL OR NOTHING- BLACK OR WHITE THINKING • Cannot tolerate anything less than perfection. • No gray areas • A setback is a complete failure • If you are angry with me, you hate me.

THESE LINES ARE ALL STRAIGHT

OVERGENERALIZING • A single negative event is seen as a never-ending pattern of defeat. • If the morning begins badly, the whole day is ruined. • If one apple is bad, the whole box is rotten.

DWELLING ON THE NEGATIVE • And ignoring the positive. • Don’t even HEAR the positives. • If we have a constructive assessment which is 90% positive and 10% negative we only see or hear the negative,

DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE • We insist our positive qualities or accomplishments don’t count. • We have succeeded many times but we only remember the failure which dominates our mind.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS • We think we can read people’s minds and conclude they are thinking badly of us. • We think things will turn out badly even when there is absolutely no reason to think so.

MAGNIFYING OR MINIMIZING • We blow up certain things and shrink others. • Usually it is the negatives that get blown up and the positives that shrink either in ourselves and others.

EMOTIONAL REASONING • We judge from our feelings. ”I feel like an idiot therefore I must be one. ” • “I feel terrible this morning, so I must look terrible and everyone can see it. ” • “If I feel it it must be true”

MAKING “SHOULD” STATEMENTS • We criticize ourselves and others with words like “should” and “shouldn’t” • This creates unnecessary guilt and resentment.

LABELING AND MISLABELING • Instead of saying “I made a mistake” or “You forgot to lock the door”, we say: • “I never do anything right” or “You are such an idiot”

PERSONALIZING AND BLAMING • We either blame ourselves for something we were not really responsible for , or we blame other people when our own attitude and behavior might have contributed to the problem.

OUR THOUGHTS OFTEN DETERMINE OUR MOODS • These Cognitive Distortions cause us to become angry and lose our motivation. • WE CAN UNTWIST OUR THINKING