18/08/2024
Some Cognitive Distortions
1. All-or-Nothing / Polarized Thinking: This distortion is also known as “Black-and-White Thinking, ” and it occurs when a person is not able to see the gray areas of any situations. In other words, the person may not be able to or willing to see that there may be other factors or different options in any situation. Therefore, they stay stuck between two extremes which makes them hard to compromise with others or make a decision. For example may be a person that fails in something may think that they are a total failure without recognizing that they may need to improve in an area in their life and that the single failure does not define them and their capabilities.
2. Overgeneralization: In this distortion a person overgeneralizes things in their life, such as
defining a single occurrence as an overall pattern. For example, a person may have a
misunderstanding while communicating with a friend and then assume that they are just bad at
communicating with everyone. They may even generalize further and believe they are disliked
by everyone. Therefore, this bias leads to negative thoughts about the person’s life in general,
based on one or two experiences that they feel defines them. In others words, a single incident is
used as evidence to conclude something. The biggest challenge with overgeneralizing is that we
may define our abilities or characteristics based one experience and then stop trying in future
situations because if that one experience.
Sir Pat
Mindest Coach