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Are your thinking patterns affecting your mental health?
What cognitive distortions lead to negative thinking?
What are cognitive distortions & 'unhelpful thinking styles'?
Are your negative feelings based on thinking errors?
What are unhelpful thinking styles?
What is a distorted thought?
Dec 18, 2019 · Cognitive distortions are types of thinking patterns that emphasize negative biases. Mental health professionals first described them in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Research from 2017...
- All-or-Nothing Thinking / Polarized Thinking. Also known as “Black-and-White Thinking,” this distortion manifests as an inability or unwillingness to see shades of gray.
- Overgeneralization. This sneaky distortion takes one instance or example and generalizes it to an overall pattern. For example, a student may receive a C on one test and conclude that she is stupid and a failure.
- Mental Filter. Similar to overgeneralization, the mental filter distortion focuses on a single negative piece of information and excludes all the positive ones.
- Disqualifying the Positive. On the flip side, the “Disqualifying the Positive” distortion acknowledges positive experiences but rejects them instead of embracing them.
- Filtering. Mental filtering is draining and straining all positives in a situation and, instead, dwelling on its negatives. Even if there are more positive aspects than negative in a situation or person, you focus on the negatives exclusively.
- Polarization or all-or-nothing thinking. Polarized thinking is thinking about yourself and the world in an “all-or-nothing” way. When you engage in thoughts of black or white, with no shades of gray, this type of cognitive distortion is leading you.
- Overgeneralization. When you overgeneralize something, you take an isolated negative event and turn it into a never-ending pattern of loss and defeat. With overgeneralization, words like “always,” “never,” “everything,” and “nothing” are frequent in your train of thought.
- Discounting the positive. Discounting positives is similar to mental filtering. The main difference is that you dismiss it as something of no value when you do think of positive aspects.
Nov 8, 2023 · Cognitive distortions are negative or irrational patterns of thinking. These negative thought patterns can play a role in diminishing your motivation, lowering your self-esteem, and contributing to problems like anxiety, depression, and substance use.
Nov 19, 2012 · 10 Forms of Cognitive Distortions (Faulty Thinking) All-or-nothing thinking – you see things in black-and-white categories – there is no grey. For example – if an action isn’t completed then it is entirely wrong or useless.
We discuss common cognitive distortions, why we think in unhelpful ways, and the treatment of unhelpful thinking styles with CBT.
May 4, 2022 · Ruminative thinking — negative thought patterns that loop repeatedly in our minds — is common in many psychiatric disorders. This type of thinking also contributes to the unhappiness and alienation that many people feel. One certainly doesn't have to have a psychiatric diagnosis to ruminate unhelpfully.
