The power of your thoughts....

I have been working with people struggling with emotional issues; such as anxiety and depression. One effective way to help them is to challenge their cognitive distortions. If they can recognize their distorted thoughts and challenge them with a positive thought, they can change how they feel.

Our thoughts control our feelings and our feelings control our behavior. Though it seems simple, it can take time to change the way the brain thinks. However, if a person is committed and works hard at acknowledging them and challenging them, they can experience a whole new outlook on life.

Below are 10 cognitive distortions that Dr. David Burns categorizes. Can you relate? If so, challenge yourself for change!

Dr. Nina

1. All-or-nothing thinking: You look at things in absolute, black-and-white categories.

2. Overgeneralization: You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental filter: You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.

4. Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities “don’t count.”

5. Jumping to conclusions: (A) Mind reading – you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence for this; (B) Fortune-telling – You arbitrarily predict that things will turn out badly.

6. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way up out of proportion or you shrink their importance inappropriately.

7. Emotional reasoning: You reason from how you feel: “I feel like an idiot, so I really must be one.” Or “I don’t feel like doing this, so I’ll put it off.”

8. “Should statements”: You criticize yourself or other people with “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts.” “Musts,” “oughts,” and “have tos” are similar offenders.

9. Labeling: You identify with your shortcomings. Instead of saying “I made a mistake," you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk,” or “a fool,” or “a loser.”

10. Personalization and blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that your own attitudes and behaviour might contribute to a problem.