David Burn's Ten Cognitive Distortions
Dr. David Burns, a psychiatrist, has published numerous chapters, studies and books, and continues to offer workshops for mental health professionals. He was a student of Dr. Aaron Beck who developed cognitive therapy during the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1980, he published a book, “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy”, in which he described ten cognitive distortions (irrational, inflated thoughts or beliefs) which people may have that are likely to lead to negative emotional states. They may be hard to recognize if you don’t know what to look for, especially if you’ve been thinking in such ways for so long!
Below are the distortions, along with examples of how they may present in your everyday life.
-All-or-nothing thinking – This refers to when you may evaluate yourself or others in extreme, “black and white” ways. For example, before developing pain, you had played your favorite sport on a regular basis. You may find yourself thinking, “If I can’t do gymnastics (for example), I can’t EVER enjoy the sport anymore.” The advantage to this thinking is that it creates certainty and predictability, and a feeling like there is order in your world. However, uncertainty is inherent in life. Living with uncertainty is possible, and it takes time to master. In this example, it is important to remember that you can still enjoy a sport even if you can’t engage with it in the way you had once done.
-Overgeneralization – This occurs when you see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern. With the example above, you may “overgeneralize” by stating to yourself that you’ll never be able to enjoy ANYTHING anymore. This is clearly an overgeneralization!
-Mental Filtering – This refers to a tendency to dwell exclusively on a single negative event, and thus perceive the whole situation as negative. For example, you are preparing a meal for some friends, and discover that you do not have an essential ingredient to make a dish you were planning to include. All you can think about is how the WHOLE meal will be ruined!
-Disqualifying the positive – This is when you take neutral or positive experiences and turn them into negative ones. For instance, a friend comes over to visit and tells you that you look great. Your immediate thought is, “I don’t feel great. She doesn’t understand.” She may not understand! However, first try a simple “thank you”; maybe you don’t look as bad as you feel!
-Jumping to conclusions – This occurs when you jump to negative conclusions that are not justified by the facts of the situation. Two types of this are “mind reading” and “fortune telling.” With mind reading, you assume you know why someone else does something and you don’t bother to investigate or ask any questions. If you greet a co-worker and you don’t receive a response, you may think, “He must be upset with me. What did I do wrong?” If you investigate further, you may realize that he was preoccupied with something else that had NOTHING to do with you! Secondly, with fortune telling, you are predicting what will happen. You predict it as though it is already an established fact. For example, you awaken with a headache and tell yourself, “My whole day is ruined. I had so much to do today, and I will never get it done!”
-Magnification and minification – In magnification, you are exaggerating the importance of a negative event or mistake. If, for example, you experience a flare-up in your pain, you find yourself saying, “I can’t stand this! I can’t take this anymore!” As a matter of fact, however, you CAN! In minification, conversely, you take positive personal qualities or events, and deny them of their importance. For example, at a family gathering someone shares how great it is to see you, but you may think, “A lot of good THAT does me, as I can’t participate in the family activities.”
-Emotional Reasoning – This refers to when you use your emotions as evidence for truth. If you “feel” something is right, then it "must" be true. For instance, you find yourself thinking, “I feel useless, THEREFORE I AM useless.”
-Labeling – This is when you identify a negative quality or a mistake, and then describe an entire situation or individual in terms of that quality. For example, instead of seeing yourself as someone who has difficulty paying attention, you may find yourself saying, “I am ADHD.”
-Personalization – This describes when you take responsibility for a negative event, even when the circumstances are beyond your control. For example, you choose where you and a friend go out to dinner, and the service and food are poor. You find yourself feeling responsible for making a bad choice and “ruining” your evening together.
-“Should” statements – These are attempts to motivate by saying such things like, “I should know better,” “I should go there,” or “I must do that.” Such statements are likely to lead you to feel resentful and pressured, and suggest that you are complying with an external authority, and not by your own.
In 1980, he published a book, “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy”, in which he described ten cognitive distortions (irrational, inflated thoughts or beliefs) which people may have that are likely to lead to negative emotional states. They may be hard to recognize if you don’t know what to look for, especially if you’ve been thinking in such ways for so long!
Below are the distortions, along with examples of how they may present in your everyday life.
-All-or-nothing thinking – This refers to when you may evaluate yourself or others in extreme, “black and white” ways. For example, before developing pain, you had played your favorite sport on a regular basis. You may find yourself thinking, “If I can’t do gymnastics (for example), I can’t EVER enjoy the sport anymore.” The advantage to this thinking is that it creates certainty and predictability, and a feeling like there is order in your world. However, uncertainty is inherent in life. Living with uncertainty is possible, and it takes time to master. In this example, it is important to remember that you can still enjoy a sport even if you can’t engage with it in the way you had once done.
-Overgeneralization – This occurs when you see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern. With the example above, you may “overgeneralize” by stating to yourself that you’ll never be able to enjoy ANYTHING anymore. This is clearly an overgeneralization!
-Mental Filtering – This refers to a tendency to dwell exclusively on a single negative event, and thus perceive the whole situation as negative. For example, you are preparing a meal for some friends, and discover that you do not have an essential ingredient to make a dish you were planning to include. All you can think about is how the WHOLE meal will be ruined!
-Disqualifying the positive – This is when you take neutral or positive experiences and turn them into negative ones. For instance, a friend comes over to visit and tells you that you look great. Your immediate thought is, “I don’t feel great. She doesn’t understand.” She may not understand! However, first try a simple “thank you”; maybe you don’t look as bad as you feel!
-Jumping to conclusions – This occurs when you jump to negative conclusions that are not justified by the facts of the situation. Two types of this are “mind reading” and “fortune telling.” With mind reading, you assume you know why someone else does something and you don’t bother to investigate or ask any questions. If you greet a co-worker and you don’t receive a response, you may think, “He must be upset with me. What did I do wrong?” If you investigate further, you may realize that he was preoccupied with something else that had NOTHING to do with you! Secondly, with fortune telling, you are predicting what will happen. You predict it as though it is already an established fact. For example, you awaken with a headache and tell yourself, “My whole day is ruined. I had so much to do today, and I will never get it done!”
-Magnification and minification – In magnification, you are exaggerating the importance of a negative event or mistake. If, for example, you experience a flare-up in your pain, you find yourself saying, “I can’t stand this! I can’t take this anymore!” As a matter of fact, however, you CAN! In minification, conversely, you take positive personal qualities or events, and deny them of their importance. For example, at a family gathering someone shares how great it is to see you, but you may think, “A lot of good THAT does me, as I can’t participate in the family activities.”
-Emotional Reasoning – This refers to when you use your emotions as evidence for truth. If you “feel” something is right, then it "must" be true. For instance, you find yourself thinking, “I feel useless, THEREFORE I AM useless.”
-Labeling – This is when you identify a negative quality or a mistake, and then describe an entire situation or individual in terms of that quality. For example, instead of seeing yourself as someone who has difficulty paying attention, you may find yourself saying, “I am ADHD.”
-Personalization – This describes when you take responsibility for a negative event, even when the circumstances are beyond your control. For example, you choose where you and a friend go out to dinner, and the service and food are poor. You find yourself feeling responsible for making a bad choice and “ruining” your evening together.
-“Should” statements – These are attempts to motivate by saying such things like, “I should know better,” “I should go there,” or “I must do that.” Such statements are likely to lead you to feel resentful and pressured, and suggest that you are complying with an external authority, and not by your own.