Identifying and Changing Fear or Anxiety Generating Thoughts and Perceptions Cognitive Distortions: These are errors in thoughts, perceptions, expectations and attitudes that frequently result in either anxiety, irrational fear or depressed mood. The list below represents such forms of thinking, which fall within the category of pessimistic or negative thinking and are not based in reality. The good news is that we can change our thinking. By recognizing when we are engaging in irrational and anxiety generating thinking, we can replace such thoughts with rational evidence and reality based thinking that will result in our feeling in control, calm, confident about ourselves and optimistic about situations. Distorted, Self-Defeating and Negative Forms of Thinking: All or Nothing or “Black and White” : Engaging in extremes in one’s perceptions. Example: “If I failed one course, I must be stupid or unable to handle college” Over Generalization :...
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Showing posts from May, 2014