The Ten Basic thinking errors
As conceived by Dr. David Burns
1. All or Nothing Thinking: Here, you look at things in black-and-white ways. Situations and people are perceived in absolute terms. Common phrases are, “I’m a total loser,” “Nothing is going right,” “All hope is lost,” “I’ll never get what I want.”
2. Overgeneralization: You view a single negative event as part of an ongoing pattern of defeat. You might say or think things like, “This (bad event) just proves how bad my life is.”
3. Mental Filter: When using this kind of distorted thinking, you dwell on the negative and ignore the positives. You may know that you have 20 good things happening, but the one defeat is all you focus on.
4. Discounting the Positive: You insist that your positive qualities or accomplishments don’t count. For instance, when someone pays you a compliment about your appearance and you downplay it or make excuses.
5. Jumping to Conclusions: You assume the worst, even if there is no evidence to support your assumption. There are two types of jumping to conclusions:
a. Mind-Reading: You believe people are reacting negatively to you.
b. Fortune-telling: You believe situations will end badly.
6. Magnification or Minimization: Magnification, or catastrophizing, happens when you blow things out of proportion. You might tell yourself things like, “This is the worst thing that could happen!” On the other hand, minimization happens when you minimize the importance of things. For example, “It was just an A on the test; someone else still did better than me.”
7. Emotional Reasoning: You believe your feelings are reality. For instance, “I feel like an idiot” so you tell yourself you really are one.
8. Should statements: These critical statements are used against ourselves and others to tell us we should, must, ought-to and have-to do certain things.
9. Labeling: You label yourself or others with an unflattering name out of anger or frustration. We label ourselves or others “jerks,” “losers,” “idiots,” and so forth.
10. Blame: Here you blame yourself for something that wasn’t entirely your fault, or you blame others and overlook your contribution to the problem
