Common Patterns in our Thinking

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

2. Over generalization:  You view a negative event as a never ending pattern of defeat.

3.  Selective Filtering:  You magnify or maximize the importance of negatives while minimizing or discounting the positives.

4. Jumping to Conclusions:  (a) Mind reading:  You assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there's no definite evidence.  (b) Fortune Telling:  You arbitrarily predict that things will turn out badly.

5.  Emotional Reasoning:  You reason from how you feel.  "I feel like an idiot so I must be one".

6.  Should Statements:  You criticize yourself (or other people) with "shoulds", "oughts", "musts", have to's".  (see our Irrational Shoulds page for more information on "shoulds").

7. Labeling:  Instead of saying "I made a mistake", you tell yourself, "I'm a loser", or "a fool", or "an idiot"  etc.

8.  Personalization:  You take personal responsibility for things that you weren't responsible for.  "My friend was in an accident and it was my fault for not warning her about the weather".

9.  Blame and condemnation:  You judge and condemn others or yourself for human flaws and mistakes.

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