Cognitive Distortions

Take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.

Place people or situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and situations.

If something bad happens only once, we expect it to happen over and over again.

A person may conclude that someone is reacting negatively toward them but doesn’t actually bother to find out if they are correct.

This occurs when a person sees any unpleasant occurrence as the worst possible outcome.

A person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to the person.

Put himself or herself at fault for events that are truly out of the person’s control. Assume responsibility for the pain and happiness of everyone around us.

A person assumes that things have to be measured based on fairness and equality, when in reality things often don’t always work that way.

Рold other people responsible for our pain, or take the other track and blame ourselves for every problem.

Believe that what we feel must be true automatically.

Trial to prove that our opinions and actions are correct.

Expect our sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if someone is keeping score

Assume that we know what someone else thinks or feels.

Assume that other people must change their behavior in order for us to be happy.

Attribute all positive events to his or her personal character while seeing any negative events as outside of his or her control.