CHECKLIST OF COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
Distorted ways people think about themselves, adapted from David Burns, MD. 1989. The Feeling Good Handbook.
cognitive distortion
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1. All-or-nothing thinking: You restrict possibilities and options to only two choices: yes or no (all or nothing).
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2. Over generalization: You view a single, negative event as a continuing and neverending pattern of defeat.
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3. Negative Mental filter: You dwell mostly on the negatives and generally ignore the positives.
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4. Discounting the positives: You insist your achievements or positive efforts do not count.
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5. Jumping to conclusions: A. Mind-reading: You assume that people are reacting negatively to you without any objective evidence. B. Fortune-Telling: You predict that things will turn out badly without any objective evidence.
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6. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or minimize their importance.
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7. Emotional reasoning: You base your reasoning from your feelings: "I feel like a loser, so I must be one."
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8. "Mustabatory thinking" or "Shoulding All Over Yourself": You criticize yourself or other people with "musts," "shoulds," "oughts," and "have tos."
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9. Labeling: Instead of saying "I made a mistake," you tell yourself "I'm an idiot" or "I'm a loser."
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10.Personalization: You blame yourself almost completely for something for which you were not entirely responsible.
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