Errors in Thinking, and Managing Mood and Thoughts

Once we realize our mind is often on ‘auto-pilot,’ we have the opportunity to understand and change our thinking patterns that can lead us ‘astray.’

Common Thinking Errors (adopted from Feeling Good by David Burns, MD 1999)

1. All or nothing thinking: Your performance falls short of perfection, you see yourself as a total failure. Example: “I forgot one deadline today… I’m clearly terrible at my job.”
2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. Example: “My client was unhappy with this hearing. This always happens. Nothing I do ever works out.”
3. Mental filters: You dwell on a single negative moment, distorting your perspective and discounting any positives. Example: “I got positive feedback from everyone except one person who had a small critique. That means the whole presentation was a failure.”
4. Jumping to conclusions: You may generate negative interpretations of events before all the facts are in. Example: “My supervisor hasn’t responded to my email yet—she must be upset with me.”
5. ‘Catastrophizing’: You may exaggerate the importance of negative events; or conversely, minimize the importance of positive events. Example: “If I make even one mistake, I’ll lose the case, the client will fire me, and my whole career will fall apart.”
6. Emotional reasoning: You believe your bad feeling about events are an accurate reflection on how events really are. Example: “I feel like a loser, so I must be”
7. Personalization: You erroneously believe that you are the primary cause of negative events, you may not have responsibility for. Example: “My colleague seemed stressed during our call—what did I do wrong?”

Can you identify any of the above thinking errors that may add to your stress?

Three Laws of Thinking to help manage anxiety/worry- (Pacione, 2021)

1. Thoughts are NOT Facts
2. You can survive many bad outcomes
3. You don’t have to be perfect to be successful or be ‘good enough.’