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Authors: David D. Burns
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there is no basis for doing so. You arbitrarily conclude that what happened was your fault or reflects your inadequacy, even when you were not responsible for it. For example, when a patient didn’t do a self-help assignment I had suggested,I felt guilty because of my thought, “I must be a lousy therapist. It’s my fault that she isn’t working harder to help herself. It’s my responsibility to make sure she gets well.” When a mother saw her child’s report card, there was a note from the teacher indicating the child was not working well. She immediately decided, “I must be a bad mother. This shows how I’ve failed.”
Personalization causes you to feel crippling guilt. You suffer from a paralyzing and burdensome sense of responsibility that forces you to carry the whole world on your shoulders. You have confused influence with control over others. In your role as a teacher, counselor, parent, physician, salesman, executive, you will certainly influence the people you interact with, but no one could reasonably expect you to control them. What the other person does is ultimately his or her responsibility, not yours. Methods to help you overcome your tendency to personalize and trim your sense of responsibility down to manageable, realistic proportions will be discussed later on in this book.
The ten forms of cognitive distortions cause many, if not all, of your depressed states. They are summarized in Table 3–1 on page 42. Study this table and master these concepts; try to become as familiar with them as with your phone number. Refer to Table 3–1 over and over again as you learn about the various methods for mood modification. When you become familiar with these ten forms of distortion, you will benefit from this knowledge all your life.
I have prepared a simple self-assessment quiz to help you test and strengthen your understanding of the ten distortions. As you read each of the following brief vignettes, imagine you are the person who is being described. Circle one or more answers which indicate the distortions contained in the negative thoughts. I will explain the answer to the first question. The answer key to subsequent questions is given at the end of this chapter. But don’t look ahead! I’m certain you will be able to identify at least one distortion in the first question—and that will be a start!
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Table 3–1 . 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. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
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 colors 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
Personalization causes you to feel crippling guilt. You suffer from a paralyzing and burdensome sense of responsibility that forces you to carry the whole world on your shoulders. You have confused influence with control over others. In your role as a teacher, counselor, parent, physician, salesman, executive, you will certainly influence the people you interact with, but no one could reasonably expect you to control them. What the other person does is ultimately his or her responsibility, not yours. Methods to help you overcome your tendency to personalize and trim your sense of responsibility down to manageable, realistic proportions will be discussed later on in this book.
The ten forms of cognitive distortions cause many, if not all, of your depressed states. They are summarized in Table 3–1 on page 42. Study this table and master these concepts; try to become as familiar with them as with your phone number. Refer to Table 3–1 over and over again as you learn about the various methods for mood modification. When you become familiar with these ten forms of distortion, you will benefit from this knowledge all your life.
I have prepared a simple self-assessment quiz to help you test and strengthen your understanding of the ten distortions. As you read each of the following brief vignettes, imagine you are the person who is being described. Circle one or more answers which indicate the distortions contained in the negative thoughts. I will explain the answer to the first question. The answer key to subsequent questions is given at the end of this chapter. But don’t look ahead! I’m certain you will be able to identify at least one distortion in the first question—and that will be a start!
----
Table 3–1 . 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. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
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 colors 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
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