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).