05/22/2026
Imagine if your brain sometimes played tricks on you, making you see things in a way that’s not entirely accurate. This is what happens with cognitive distortions. They are biased perspectives we take on ourselves and the world around us, often leading to negative thinking, emotions, and behaviors.
Some common cognitive distortions include:
All-or-Nothing Thinking - Viewing things in absolute, black-and-white categories.
Emotional Reasoning - Believing something must be true because it “feels” true, despite evidence to the contrary.
Personalization - Blaming yourself for external events or over-identifying with negative events.
Magnification and Minimization - Exaggerating the negative while minimizing the positive.
Overgeneralization - Making broad negative conclusions from a single event.
Disqualifying the Positive - Rejecting positive experiences or discounting your strengths and talents.
Mind Reading - Assuming you know what others are thinking, usually negatively.
Labeling - Attaching rigid, global negative labels to yourself or others.
Recognizing these distortions is the first step towards changing how you think, feel, and act. They often occur automatically, but with awareness, you can challenge and replace them with more balanced thoughts. The goal is not to have positive thoughts all the time but to have a more realistic perspective.
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