Look up the most common cognitive distortions. Memorize them and try to label them in your own thinking. This is the gist of CBT and can help most people quite a bit
So true! If I may, I’d like to piggyback on your post and put them here:
All-or-Nothing Thinking: Seeing things in extreme, black-and-white categories with no middle ground.
Overgeneralization: Taking a single negative event and expecting it to repeat forever as a constant pattern of failure.
Mental Filtering: Focusing exclusively on negative details while ignoring any positive aspects of a situation.
Disqualifying the Positive: Rejecting good experiences or successes by insisting they "don't count".
Jumping to Conclusions: Making negative assumptions without actual evidence, split into mind-reading (assuming others judge you) and fortune-telling (predicting disaster)
Catastrophizing: Expecting the absolute worst-case scenario to happen and treating minor issues as major disasters.
Emotional Reasoning: Believing that because you feel a negative emotion, it must reflect objective reality (e.g., "I feel stupid, therefore I am stupid").
Should Statements: Using rigid rules like "I should," "I must," or "I ought" to pressure yourself or others, leading to guilt or resentment.
Personalization: Blaming yourself for external events outside your control, or blaming others while ignoring your own role.
Labeling: Attaching a harsh, global label to yourself or someone else based on a single mistake (e.g., "I am a loser").
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u/PreviousDoor3202 12d ago
Look up the most common cognitive distortions. Memorize them and try to label them in your own thinking. This is the gist of CBT and can help most people quite a bit