Cognitive distortion refers to the irrational thoughts that portray psychopathological state of the mind like anxiety, depression, and trauma, among others. In this state of mind, an individual is incapable of establishing the truth and lie. In most case, cognitive distortion tends to reinforce negative emotions or behavioral patterns. In general, a person with cognitive distortion is not able to perceive reality and hence convinces the mind. There are many types or scenarios of cognitive distortion. These include and not limited to; over generalization- making a general conclusion that a negative occurrence is in a repetitive pattern. All or nothing i.e. viewing things in black and white, mental filtering that involves ignoring the positives and majoring on the negatives in one’s thoughts. Magnification or minimization that involve viewing things and occurrences away from the normal views. Emotional reasoning that involves reasoning from one’s emotions.
Others include labeling whereby one labels oneself, for example, “I am a loser,” and belief so. Discounting positives whereby one emphasizes on disqualifying the positives and insisting they do not count due to other reasons, jumping into conclusions involving making a negative conclusion without any supporting evidence. The last is personalization and blame whereby one attributes negative events to self even when the person is not involved with such events (Checklist of Cognitive Distortions, n.d.).
Reference
Checklist of Cognitive Distortions, (n.d.)accessed on October 26, 2014 from http://www.apsu.edu/sites/apsu.edu/files/counseling/COGNITIVE_0.pdf
