Unhelpful Thinking Styles

Have you ever heard "That person is such a Black and White Thinker"? That is only one unhelpful thinking styles. Lets see if you can recognize some others.

• Mental Filters Only paying attention to certain types of evidence.

Noticing our failures but not seeing our successes

• Jumping to Conclusions There are two types of jumping to conclusions

Mind Reading (Imagining that we know what others are thinking

Fortune Telling (Predicting the Future)

• Emotional Reasoning Assuming that because we feel a certain way, what we think must be true

I feel embarrassed so I must be an idiot

• Labelling Assigning labels to ourselves or other people

I'm a loser

I'm completely useless

They're such an idiot

• Overgeneralizing Seeing a pattern based upon a single event, or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw

Everything always goes bad

Nothing good ever happens

• Disqualifying the Positive Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another

That doesn't count.

• Magnification/Catastrophizing/Minimization Blowing things out of proportion

Catastrophizing or inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important

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

If we apply "Shoulds" to other people, the result is often frustration.

• Personalization Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn't completely your fault. Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault.

This is my fault