Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions
Name It!
Name it!
Name it! and Counter it!
100

What is All or Nothing Thinking? 

Sometimes this is called black and white thinking!

This can sound like, "if I don't do this perfectly, then it means I have failed." 

100

What does a thought sound like if it's over-generalizing? 

Any thought that makes a pattern based on a single event, or is overly broad in its conclusions. 

e.g., I got bit by a dog, therefore all dogs are bad. 

I had a bad math teacher in 6th grade, all math teachers are bad. 

100

"If you are not with me than you are my enemy." 

This is black or white/all or nothing thinking. someone can disagree with you or feel differently, and still care about you. 

100

Buddy the elf labeled himself! 

100

George was engaging with "should" thoughts (and it resulted in him feeling increasingly more frustrated)

200

What is a mental filter? 

Only paying attention to certain kinds of evidence. Example: only seeing our failures and not our successes 


200

What does it mean to disqualify the positive? 

Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done. 

E.g., That doesn't count 

200

There are a lot of different distortions that we can interpret here!
-blaming

-personalization

-jumping to conclusions

-mind reading 

200

Joy and Sadness are both being influenced by their own mental filters! A great example of how our emotions can impact the ways we interpret and feel about our experiences 

200

These new experiences allowed Hiccup to counter and challenge the previous beliefs he held that were over-generalizations. 

e.g., "everything we thought we knew about you guys is wrong."

300

What are the two ways we jump to conclusions? 

Mind reading and fortune telling!

Mind reading: imagining what others are thinking 

Fortune telling: predicting the future 

300

What are magnifying (catstrophizing) or minimizing thoughts? 

Blowing things out of proportion (catastrophizing) or inappropriately shrinking something down to make it less important. 

e.g., If I get a bad grade on this exam then I won't pass this class and then I will never graduate, which means I will never go to college

e.g., My house caught on fire but that's not important compared to what other people go through. 

300

Because Anakin was worried about his dream, over time he began to believe that his fears were signs that something bad was going to happen  

300

This was an example of over-generalizing

300

Phoebe taught Rachel not to spend her time and energy on trying to mind-read. Who cares if you are having fun! 

400

What is emotional reasoning 

Assuming that because we feel a certain way it must be true. 


I feel bad so that means I must have done something bad. 

I feel embarrassed so that must mean every one is judging me. 

400

Why are "should" "must" "ought" thoughts unhelpful? 

Using critical words like "should" "must" or "ought" can make us feel guilty or like we have already failed. 

If we apply these thoughts to others, we will likely feel frustrated and judgmental towards them

400
Some distortions we can see in this example are personalization and labeling 
400

Here we saw an example of Flik disqualifying the positives (he was unable to see the good he had done!) 

400
This thought counters black and white thinking because it acknowledges that many things can be true at once 
500

What is Labeling? 

Assigning labels to ourselves or other people 

"I am dumb." 

"They are bad." 

500

What is a personalization thought? 

Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn't completely your fault. 

Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault. 

500

Some thoughts we can see Howie experiencing are:  -emotional reasoning 

-Catastrophizing 

500

This was an example of minimizing 

500

How do we counter unhelpful thoughts?