Common Negative Thinking Pitfalls
“…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” - Shakespeare
We all tend to think in extremes… and when we’re upset we think that way even more. This is unfortunate because thinking this way makes us even more upset. Here are some common cognitive distortions. Take a look and see if any of them are getting in your way.
(This is adapted from the classic The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns, MD)
1. All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. Example: If your partner’s performance falls short of perfectly loving, you see them as not loving you.
2. Overgeneralization: You see a few or a single negative event as a never-ending pattern. If you catch yourself thinking “You always…” or “You never…” you’re probably overgeneralizing.
3. Mental filter: You pick out negative details and dwell on them exclusively so that your view of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolours the entire beaker of water. Example: “This house is a disaster!” instead of “Once we do the dishes it will look pretty good.”
4. Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. You maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by experiences. Example: “Vacuuming would have been good, if it was done two weeks ago.”
5. Jumping to conclusions: (I think we all know what this one means but here’s a definition anyway.) You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that support your conclusion.
5a) Mind-Reading: You assume you know what someone else is thinking.
5b) The Fortune Teller Error: You assume you know how something will go.
6. Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your partner’s goof-up), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (e.g., your own imperfections).
7. Emotional reasoning: You assume your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” This one is an invitation to consider if there might be something else that is contributing to how we feel and subsequently influencing how we are seeing the situation. For example, things tend to seem worse if we are already in a bad mood.
8. “Should” statements: You think to yourself with “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”. When we direct these toward ourselves, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything, we feel guilty. When you direct should statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. This is an invitation to consider whether you have an idea about how things should be and if it would be possible to acknowledge the validity of another perspective, for example, maybe you think “Dishes should go in the dishwasher when we’re done eating” but your partner thinks “It’s fine to wait until the end of the night to load and run the dishwasher” and when you think about it you can acknowledge that you are both “right.”
9. Labeling and mislabelling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself like “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behaviour rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to them like “He’s a selfish jerk.” It involves describing an event with intense language that is emotionally loaded.
10. Personalization: You see yourself (or someone else) as the cause of some negative event for which, in fact, you (or they) were not primarily responsible. This includes
10a) blaming (particularly if it’s wrong or exaggerated, but even if it is technically accurate, blame is rarely helpful) and/or
10b) taking things personally
11. Power-Giving: You see yourself as powerless, rather than looking for what you can do.
If you have some bad habits in the way you think and you would like some help with that, get in touch!