What is Cognitive Therapy?
Cognitive Therapy is focused on finding solutions. It explores how
distortions in your way of thinking can lead to painful feelings
and self-defeating behaviors. While we may have insight into our
problems, insight is often not enough to foster change. The therapist
takes an active role in identifying distorted thoughts and helps
you learn more logical ways to think. These new ways of thinking
can reduce or eliminate depression and anxiety while enhancing your
relationships and career success. It is also possible to recover
from such problems as alcohol/drug abuse, compulsive sex and other
behaviors. A distinct advantage of cognitive therapy is that you
will learn techniques to manage your problems more effectively on
your own.
Below is a list of cognitive distortions to watch out for that
left unchecked can easily lead to feelings of depression and anxiety.
Checklist of Cognitive Distortions:
1) All-or-Nothing Thinking: You see 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” so you can maintain negative belief.
5) Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative
interpretation even though they’re no definite facts to
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 a fact.
6) Magnification or Minimization: You blow
things out of proportion (Catastrophizing) 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 put it off.”
8) Should Statements: You criticize yourself
or other people with “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts”,
“musts”, “oughts”, “have tos”
etc…
9) Labeling: You identify with your shortcomings.
Instead of saying, “I made a mistake” you tell yourself,
“I’m a jerk, fool or loser. When someone else’s
behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to
them.
10) Personalization and Blame: You blame yourself
for something you were not entirely responsible for, or you blame
other people and overlook ways that your own attitudes and behavior
might contribute to the situation.
References: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
by David D. Burns, M.D. (1980), New York: Morrow; “A Clients
Guide to Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy” by David C. Bricker,
Ph.D. and Jeffrey E. Young Ph.D., Cognitive Therapy Center of
New York, Winter, 1993. |
