Reposting CBT stuff, because it seems we all need a refresher course, me included

[mousme]

And by CBT, I mean Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which was developed in part by David Burns. :)

Definitions of Cognitive Distortions:

1- ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2- OVERGENERALISATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. (i.e. You drop a cup and break it and say to yourself: "That's typical! I'm always breaking stuff!" when in fact you haven't broken a dish in years)

3- MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colours the entire beaker of water.

4- DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

5- JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

a) Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
b) The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

6- MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."

7- EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

8- SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements at others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

9- LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behaviour rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: "He's a goddamn louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly coloured and emotionally loaded.

10- PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. (i.e. a loved one's bad mood, a tragic loss, an argument between other people)

Comments

[king-duncan.livejournal.com]

CBT?

(I assume from context you don't mean Cock/Ball Torture)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing*

Sorry! I forgot about that before posting. I got the same confused reaction last time I posted. Will edit accordingly. :)

No, I meant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. ;)

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

5- JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

Are you saying I jump to conclusions? I know, I always jump to conclusions. I shouldn't do this.

:-)

Seriously, I think this may help me. A lot.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

*lol*

Good one. :D

[ex-digitalis869.livejournal.com]

So what can you do in place of shoulds?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I will in fact be getting to that in detail in later posts. :)

Re: Reposting CBT stuff

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I think I was the one who deliberately misinterpreted it last time.

I was going to ask if you minded if I posted a link to this in my journal, bounced up and down and said, "Everyone read this" but then I noticed that it was locked. Oops.

I'm very good at 2 and 10; lots of practice.