6) Magnification/Minimisation (Binocular Trick)

Another thinking trap you might fall into is the magnification or minimisation of events - otherwise known as the "binocular trick" - overemphasising the negatives and under-emphasising the positives.

Often you will magnify the importance of you own errors. For example, if you take part in a group project at school but it gets a lower grade than expected, in your head you may over exaggerate any mistake you may have made and blame yourself for the low grade. This is like looking through a pair of binoculars - things appear much bigger than they are in reality.

To be honest, what difference does one particular event have on your life? What will you think about it in a week, a month, a year or ten years? Will anyone else remember what happened? Will you? Even if yo do, will you really feel the same about it? Probably-not.

On the other hand, when you do something really well you will often do the exact opposite, dismissing it, seeing it as small or unimportant. You will probably reject your personal strengths too, viewing them as insignificant. This is like looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

Automatic thought: I made a real fool of myself yesterday, I'll never be able to face them again.

Possible answers: Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Most people didn't even notice. I don't think anyone who did thought much of it - they were probably too busy thinking of themselves. If it had happened when I was feeling happier, I would have laughed about it. It certainly makes a good story!

Picture Source: http://www.spotshoppingguide.com/choosing-the-best-binoculars/

5) Arbitrary Inference (Jumping to Conclusions)

Arbitrary inference is a cognitive distortion in which a judgement of an event is formed in the absence of supporting evidence. Insufficient evidence leads to an erroneous conclusion. Two examples of this are "mind reading" and "the fortune teller error".

Mind reading occurs when you imagine/believe that other people are thinking negative thoughts about you. You are so convinced that people are looking down on you that you don't even bother to check it out. For example, suppose a friend passes you in the school corridor but fails to say hello because he is so absorbed in his own thoughts that he doesn't notice you. You might have jump to the conclusion that, "He is deliberately ignoring me, he must not like me any more." You may have responded to this imagined negative reaction by withdrawal or counter-attack. This self-defeating behaviour pattern may result in a self-fulfilling prophecy and set up a negative interaction in a relationship when none existed in the first place!

None of us are mind-readers, how can you know what someone else is thinking? You may be right but do not jump to conclusions. Stick to what you can be sure of. If you do not have enough evidence to make a sound judgement, see if you can find out more of the facts before you make up your mind.

Automatic thoughts: My girlfriend didn't eat all of the cake I baked for her. She thinks I'm a terrible cook.

Possible answers: All I know for sure is that she didn't eat all of it. I don't actually know whether she thinks I'm a terrible cook or not. Maybe she just wasn't hungry. I can ask her.

The fortune teller error is when you imagine that bad things are going to happen to you and you take the prediction as a fact even though it is unrealistic. For example, during my panic attacks I used to believe that I was going to pass-out or go crazy. My prediction was unrealistic because never before had I passed out or gone crazy, but my negative expectations made my panic attacks worse. Just like the mind reading error, the fortune telling error could easily end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you believe that your boyfriend is going to cheat on you, it may influence the way you act around him and your behaviour towards him, in such a way that he may feel attacked or controlled and he may seek to break free.

Or if something has gone wrong in the past, it doesn't mean it will go wrong in the future. If you predict the future, instead of trying something different and finding out what happens, you are cutting off the possibility of change. Change may be difficult but its not usually impossible.

Automatic thoughts: I'll never get the main part in that play. I never have.

Possible answers: The fact that I have never got the main part doesn't mean that I never can. If I go and audition again this year I may feel uncomfortable at first, but if I give it my all I might even enjoy the audition. Also other people will respect me for going back and trying again, and I will respect myself. If I don't try I will never know!

Picture Source: http://yaelweinberg.com/517188

4) Disqualifying The Positive

Disqualifying the positive is when you reject a positive experience by insisting that it "doesn't count" for one reason or another. You don't just ignore the experiences, but you swiftly turn them into their opposite, and by doing so you maintain your negative beliefs. David D. Burns calls this "reverse alchemy" because the medieval alchemists (early scientists) dreamed of finding some method for transmuting base metals into gold. If you are depressed, you are likely to have a talent for doing the exact opposite - you can instantly turn your golden joy into emotional lead. However, you do this unintentionally - in fact you are probably unaware that you are doing it!

For example a depressed person at a party will not only remember the person who ignored them, but they will also forget or downplay the others that chatted to them for hours, saying "oh they just felt sorry for me."

However, the most common example of this is the way most of us have been conditioned to respond to a compliment. When someone praises your looks or personality, you might automatically tell yourself. "they are just being nice." BOOM, you have just mentally disqualified their compliment. You do the same thing to them when someone thanks you and you say, "oh it was nothing, really." You are constantly disqualifying everything positive that is said to you... no wonder everything seems so gloomy!

Automatic thought: Louise only said that she liked my hair because she felt sorry for me.

Possible answers: Louise didn't have to say anything about my hair, but she chose to. She has no reason to lie to me or to feel sorry for me so therefore I can believe her and feel happy about the compliment!

Picture source: http://yaelweinberg.com/517188

3) Selective Abstraction (Mental Filter)

'Selective abstraction' is when you conceptualise a whole situation on the basis of one detail that is taken out of context.  You pick out one negative detail and think about it exclusively, thus perceiving the whole situation as negative.

For example: In a maths exam a student finished the paper but was sure she had missed 17 questions out of the 100. For days after the exam she couldn't stop thinking about those 17 questions and came to the conclusion that she should drop out of college. However, when she received the results of the exam, she scored 83 and got an A*!

When you are depressed, you mentally filter out everything positive, and because you are unaware of this 'filtering process' you conclude that everything is negative. It is a bad habit that causes you to suffer unnecessarily.

Automatic thoughts: Tom and Katie didn't come to my party. I must be a horrible person. No one likes me.

Possible answers: You invited 20 people to your party and only two didn't come. 18 of your friends did come! They wouldn't have come if you were a horrible person and they wouldn't have come if they didn't like you; therefore lots of people like you! Have you actually asked Tom and Katie why they didn't come? They probably had previous arrangements and it was nothing to do with you so don't take it personally!

Picture Source: http://www.yaelweinberg.com/517188/Contact

2) Overgeneralisation

When you draw a general conclusion on the basis of a single incident you are overgeneralising. You irrationally conclude that one thing that happened to you once will occur over and over again, or already has occurred many times before. For example, the common statement - "things are always going wrong for me" is often said after one bad thing has happened. However, when you take a step back and thing about this statement you will realise that this is a huge overgeneralisation! Things are not always going wrong for you, you just tend to remember the bad things over the good! Or another example, I was driving in my car the other day and a bird crapped on my window. I was really annoyed and thought to myself, "That's just my luck, birds are always crapping on my window!" But when I actually thought about this experience, I realised that it was the first time it had ever happened to me. This is a perfect example of overgeneralisation.

The pain of rejection is generated almost entirely from overgenralisation. A friend of mine recently asked a girl out. When she politely rejected because of a previous engagement he thought to himself that he would never get a date and he would be single and lonely forever. In his distorted cognitions he concluded that because she turned him down once, she would always do so, and that since all women have exactly the same tastes, he would be endlessly rejected! Overgeneralisation? I think so! 

Learn to talk back to these damaging statements based on single events...

Automatic thoughts: I was so irritable with my boyfriend this morning. I'm a terrible girlfriend and a horrible person.

Possible answers: The fact that on a particular day, at a particular time, in a particular circumstance, I was irritable, does not make me a terrible girlfriend or a horrible person. I can't reasonably expect never to be irritable, and making myself depressed by writing myself off completely is not going to help me to be nicer to my boyfriend when he next comes over.

Ideas taken from "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy" (David D. Burns). 

1) Dichotomous Reasoning (black-or-white/all-or-nothing thinking)

Dichotomous reasoning refers to your tendency to evaluate your personal qualities in extreme, black-or-white/mutually exclusive categories. It is the most common kind of negative thinking, and is the main cause of many problems including anxiety and depression. For example, a straight-A student may believe that they are a total failure because they received a B on an exam. This all-or-nothing thinking forms the basis for perfectionism. It causes you to fear any imperfection or mistake because you will then see yourself as a complete loser, and you will feel inadequate and worthless, leading to anxiety. It can cause depression because when you think you have to be perfect, you feel trapped by your own unrealistic standards.

This way of evaluating things is unrealistic, because hardly anything in life is either one way or the other. For example, no one is absolutely amazing or totally stupid, and no one is all good or all bad! Look at the floor of the room you are sitting in now. Is it perfectly clean? Or is every inch piled high with dust and dirt? Or is it partially clean? Absolutes do not exist in this universe. If you try to force your experiences into absolute categories, you will be constantly depressed because your perceptions will not conform to reality. You will set yourself up for shaming yourself endlessly because whatever you do will not measure up to your exaggerated expectations.

Examples: Automatic thought: I did that really badly, I might as well not bother at all
                Possible answer: The fact is, I didn't do it as well as I wanted to. That does not mean that it was no good at all, I can't expect to get everything 100% right. If I do, I'll never be satisfied.

Are you applying this kind of black-or-white thinking to yourself? Look for the shades of grey.

(Some of this has been taken from the book "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy" by David D. Burns)