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