15 Cognitive Distortions: Understanding Negative Thinking Patterns
ARBITRARY 1.INFERENCIA: Refers to the process of drawing conclusions which are not consistent with objective evidence. A person who is depressed does negative interpretations of events would be more appropriate when neutral or positive interpretations. For example, a girl of 15 years found that those who decorated his locker at the school had chosen to punish her because they did not like. But decorating a locker in high school was considered as a reward.
O 2.FILTRAJE SELECTIVE ABSTRACTION: Consists of selecting a single aspect of a situation, an aspect that pervades the whole interpretation of the situation and others do not realize that contradict it. Is to focus on a detail extracted out of context, ignoring other relevant features of the situation, and appreciating all the experience based on that detail.
A person is a friend and talk about many topics welcome, however discuss politics, go home and feel angry thinking that criticism to his political ideas, forgetting the other issues shared pleasant. In these patients, negative filters, the good is forgotten. In the depression tends to support this scheme negative. Example: One patient believed that her son had problems at school were indicative of his failure as a mother. Not spontaneously remembered the competence of the child in other subjects, his tenderness toward others and his confidence in himself despite his learning difficulties. When you remember these questions, she did not see them as signs that it was a good mother, but as evidence of the strength of his son to his bad behavior as a mother.
POLARIZED 3.PENSAMIENTO (ALL OR NOTHING): It consists in assessing the events in an extreme form regardless intermediate aspects. Things are assessed as good or bad, white or black, forgetting intermediate grades. For example, a boy who receives a not to invite a girl thinks, “Only bad things happen to me.” Another person can not find work thinks: “I am incompetent and useless.” Keywords for detection of this distortion are all those that maximize the ratings forgetting the middle grades and shades. Examples: “Loser,” “Coward”, “Useless”, etc. ..
4.SOBREGENERALIZACION: This distortion of thought is an overall conclusion of one particular fact no sufficient basis. For example, a person seeking work and can not find it and concludes: “I’ll never get a job.” Another person who feels sad and thinks: “I will always be so.” Keywords that indicate that a person is Overgeneralizing thinkers are: “All .. No one .. Never .. Always .. All .. None.” In depression, one can say: Everything is ruined. My whole life is a wreck. Everyone has the same attitude
5.PERSONALIZACION: It consists in the habit of relating, without sufficient basis, the facts of the environment with oneself. It refers to the excessive tendency for the person to attribute external events as personal to you, with no evidence for this. For example: At work a person was under the impression that every time he spoke to the manager had to improve the quality of work is related exclusively to him. This person was thinking, “I know you said for me.” A woman who listened to her husband complaining about how boring weekend, I thought, “Sure you think I’m boring.”
6.INTERPRETACION OF THOUGHT: Refers to the tendency to interpret baseless feelings and intentions of others.Sometimes these interpretations are based on a mechanism called projective of assigning to others the feelings and motivations, as if the others were similar to oneself. For example, a person feels like a strange look and think: “I know who think badly of me.” Someone else is waiting for another on a date and it takes five minutes and without any evidence, he comes to his mind: “I know he is lying and deceiving me.” That says to … ..
VISIÓN Catastrophe:
consists of forward events so catastrophic for personal interests, without any evidence to be the worst for yourself. For example, a person is looking at the statistics of traffic accident on TV and was going through your head: “And if I happen to me.” Another heard the news that a person lost control and killed himself, thinking: “What if the same happens to me?”.
8.FALACIA CONTROL: Consists of how the person sees herself so far on the degree of control you have over the events of his life. Either the person is generally believed very competent and responsible for everything that happens around him, or at the other end is powerless and without having any control over the events of his life. Examples: “If other people change their attitude I would feel good,” “I am responsible for the suffering of the people around me.” Keywords are: “I can not do anything ..” “I only feel good if that person changes so” “I am responsible for everything ..”
9.FALACIA OF JUSTICE: It consists in the habit of assessing everything as unfair that does not match our desires. One person suspended without evidence review and thinks: “It is unfair that I have been suspended.” Another thought about your partner: “If you really would not tell me I appreciate that.” Keywords are: “a. It is not right.” “It is unfair that ..” In situations of sickness and depression: Why me?, Do not deserve it! ….
EMOTIONAL 10.RAZONAMIENTO: It consists in believing that what the person feels emotionally necessarily true. If a person is angry is because someone has done something to alter, if you feel anxious is that there is a real danger, etc. The emotions felt are taken as an objective and not as arising from personal interpretation of the facts. The key words here are “If I feel like this is because I am / or has occurred …”
11.FALACIA OF CHANGE: It consists in believing that the welfare of oneself exclusively depends on the change of others. The person often believe that their needs are the others who have to change their behavior first, believing that depend only on those. For example a man thinks: “The relationship of my marriage only improve if you change my wife.” The key words are: “If this change is such a thing, then I could … ..”.
12.ETIQUETAS OVERALL: This consists of putting a general name or label globalizing us / them as / as often or others designated by the word “Being.” When we label generally globalize all aspects of a person or event through the prism of self, reducing it to a single element. This produces a vision of the world and people stereotyped and inflexible. For example: A man whenever I had some difficulty in talking with a woman he liked, it was said, “I am shy, so I passed it.” The key words are “I”, “A”, “They are …”
13.CULPABILIDAD: It consists in assigning responsibility for events either totally to oneself or others, without sufficient basis and without taking into account other factors that contribute to events.For example, a mother increasingly rattled their children tended to become irritated or cried with them and throwing herself to blame for not knowing better educate them. Another person who was getting fat blamed his wife for putting too much fatty food. Another feature of the fault is that often leads people to change their behavior, but only to spin the bad acts. Here are the key words around: “My fault,” “His guilt,” “Blame ..”.
14.The SHOULD: It consists in the habit of maintaining rigid rules and demanding about how things have to happen. Any deviation from these rules or standards are considered unacceptable or unbearable and leads to extreme emotional disturbance. Some psychologists have found that this distortion is at the core of most emotional disorders. Examples of this case are: A doctor is constantly annoyed with patients who did not follow its prescriptions and thought: “They should listen to me” that prevented revise their performances or explore the factors that could interfere with monitoring of its indications. A man was concerned over the possible errors that could arise in their work because it said “should be responsible and act professionally, and should not make mistakes. The emotional consequence is guilt. When a person directs toward others should feel anger, frustration and resentment.
FALACIA OF DIVINE REWARD:
Consists of a tendency not to seek a solution to current problems and difficulties if the situation will “magically” in the future, or one will have a reward in the future if left unchanged. The effect is often to accumulate a large unnecessary discomfort, resentment and seek solutions that might not be feasible at present. A woman tolerate her husband arrived late and drunk to give voices. She said: “If you stand, tomorrow you’ll realize what I do for him. But he accumulated great wrath and responded indirectly to his discomfort when he requested sex partner and she was opposed to” be tired and headache. “In this case the key words that indicate this distortion are:” Tomorrow I will have my reward, things will get better in the future. ”