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David Burns, bestselling author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, and Abraham Low, founder of Recovery, Inc., teach techniques to analyze negative thoughts or identify distorted thinking so that we can be more aware of them and to disarm them by teasing apart truth and fiction, attaching logic to the misguided stories we weave about ourselves.

Since Low’s language is a bit out-dated, I list below Burns’ “Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking,” (adapted from “Feeling Good”). These are categories of unfair ruminations, that when identified and brought into your consciousness, lose their power over you … kind of.

1. All-or-nothing thinking (a.k.a. my brain): You look at things in absolute, black-and-white categories.

2. Overgeneralization (also a favorite): You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental filter: You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.

4. Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities don’t count (my college diploma was stroke of luck…really, it was).

5. Jumping to conclusions (loves alcoholic families): You conclude things are bad without any definite evidence. These include mind-reading (assuming that people are reacting negatively to you) and fortune-telling (predicting that things will turn out badly).

6. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or you shrink their importance.

7. Emotional reasoning: You reason from how you feel: “I feel like an idiot, so I must be one.”

8. “Should” statements: You criticize yourself or other people with “shoulds,” “shouldn’ts,” “musts,” “oughts,” and “have-tos.”

9. Labeling: Instead of saying, “I made a mistake,” you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk” or “I’m a loser.”

10. Blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that you contributed to a problem.

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Therese Borchard
I am a writer and chaplain trying to live a simple life in Annapolis, Maryland.

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8 Responses
  1. Marge

    Quite a few of these apply to me and have been my feelings all through my life. Would like to read more about solutions. Title of book please. Thank you

  2. Lizzie

    Put my hand up to owning quite a few of these thoughts- probably all of them at some time.
    But this is what depression is- distorted thinking. CBT helps but hard applying them when you feel down.
    And takes up so much energy reprogrami g the brain. Little steps. Building blocks and never giving up hope!
    Lizzie

  3. Denise

    Yes I know about the depression but I always forget how it can distort your thoughts as well. I repeat to myself that “these thoughts are part of the illness and not necessarily part of reality.”

  4. Lisa

    I have fallen into so many of these over the years. Knew about these, but never actually read the book. However, I just ordered it.