50 Common Cognitive Distortions

The Question is how many do you recognise in yourself and do they cause a problem for you, we're all going to have them its when they start affecting us pretty seriously

http://www.schematherapy.com/id73.htm

Thanks, Nighty. I love that schema page, it's very in depth. The cognitive distortions--- I recognise a fair few --- not that they all happen that often or anything, but some of them do.

Things I do often --

1. Personalizing.

Taking something personally that may not be personal. Seeing events as consequences of your actions when there are other possibilities. For example, believing someone’s brusque tone must be because they’re irritated with you.

2. Mindreading. Guessing what someone else is thinking, when they may not be thinking that.

3. Negative predictions.

Overestimating the likelihood that an action will have a negative outcome.

hahahhaa Luney especially knows how prone I am to this

5. Catastrophizing.

Thinking of unpleasant events as catastrophes.

All the time

6. Biased attention toward signs of social rejection, and lack of attention to signs of social acceptance.

For example, during social interactions, paying attention to someone yawning but not paying the same degree of attention to other cues that suggest they are interested in what you’re saying (such as them leaning in).

In some situations yes

8. Thinking an absence of effusiveness means something is wrong.

Believing an absence of a smiley-face in an email means someone is mad at you. Or, interpreting “You did a good job” as negative if you were expecting “You did a great job.”

Sometimes

9. Unrelenting standards.

The belief that achieving unrelentingly high standards is necessary to avoid a catastrophe. For example, the belief that making any mistakes will lead to your colleagues thinking you're useless.

Yes

14. Belief that self-criticism is an effective way to motivate yourself toward better future behavior.

16. All or nothing thinking.
!!!

..........yeah.

Canfield's "Become an inverse paranoid" covers each of these, in my opinion. These above are tied to assuming that things aren't working out for you... be it someone's opinion of you or a project falling through.

Why not consciously contemplate best possible scenario? Assume things could work out better than expected and that will balance our the above yuckies. Would you do it?

yes its defnitely possible to balance them out, if we're capable of thinking these negative things then we're definitely capable of thinking the positive ones too, and the more we do it the more it changes our cognitive thoughts and pathways

Thanks Armine, I looked into Become an Inverse Paranoid (and this article of the same name - http://implicateevolution.com/2010/09/how-to-become-an-inverse-paranoid/ ) and I like it. Though I think they should invent another name for the inverse paranoid - as usual we have the "don't think of the white elephant!" effect, i.e. even despite the "inverse" label in front of paranoid, it still feels like we're being asked to become paranoid. Perhaps I will call myself a "super-optimist" instead

For me though, even optimism often feels scary. I'm used to expecting the worst - it feels safer. I do think philosophical pessimism and/or defensive pessimism can be useful (and studies support this view ). Nonetheless, I want to develop my optimism.... any tips on this? What works for you guys?

Hi Freya! (and hi Night!)

I think optimism (especially super-optimism) tends to have more of a negative association with it for me, maybe because it's simply annoying when you're feeling pessimistic (I'm sure you know what I mean lol). On the other hand, for me inverse paranoid is more fun bc I get to make up alternate scenarios on the spot and be imaginative just in the other direction. Seeing things as either positive or negative can put a damper on things, especially for a perfectionist (or a reformed one like me) because there's this pressure that being positive is good and pessimistic bad... the inverse paranoid concept lets me put aside the pessimistic imagining and gives free reign on imagining it any other way, and there isn't really the pressure of it being "perfect" or "good" or "optimistic" enough. It's like improv is for actors, allowing us to make up something that we think would be fun to be, and there's no scale to judge it by, except by how fun it is to do that.

This may be bc I don't have any bad feeling attached to the word paranoid. Also, when I use this phrase, my mind goes to inverse more than paranoid. In fact, now that I think about it.... I think that since I enjoy doing this exercise, over time the entire name of it has only good associations with it. Every time I've used it, I've approached it and experienced it in a light way and have felt relief. Ultimately, we assign feelings to words - not vice versa. Otherwise we'd have to build a brand new language at some point for a fresh start