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