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The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking Print E-mail
  1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: You look at things in absolutes, black and white categories.
  2. Overgeneralization: You view a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
  3. Mental Filter: You dwell on one negative detail, so your vision of the entire situation becomes dark and cloudy, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
  4. Discounting the Positive: You insist that your positive qualities or accomplishments “don’t count”.
  5. Jumping to Conclusions: A) Mind-reading: you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence for this; B) Fortune telling: you arbitrarily predict that things can’t change or will turn out badly.
  6. Magnification or Minimization: You blow things up out of proportion or shrink their importance inappropriately. This is also called “catastrophizing”.
  7. Emotional Reasoning: You reason from how you feel. “I feel like a failure; therefore I must really be one.”
  8. “Should” Statements: You criticize yourself or other people with “shouldn’ts”. You tell yourself you “should have” done this or you “shouldn’t have” done that. “Musts”, “ought”, and “have to’s” are similar offenders.
  9. Labeling: You identify with your shortcomings and mistakes and label yourself as a “fool” or a “loser” or a “jerk” instead of pinpointing the cause of the problem so you can learn from it or try to correct it.
  10. Personalization and Blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for (such as getting an illness or getting divorced). Conversely, you may blame other people, external events, or fate and overlook the ways your own attitudes and behavior may have contributed to a problem.

Adapted for D.D.Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy


Twisted thinking can fuel chronic depression, anxiety, or interpersonal conflict. Ask trusted friends if you do any of these things and commit to a daily “inventory” of any twisted thinking. A counselor can also help with developing more growth-producing perspectives.