Submitted by u1153206 on meta
    Information
    Types of unhelpful thoughts
    Many of us think in certain ways when feel down or anxious. These thoughts can be automatic and unconscious. Below, you’ll find examples of common unhelpful thinking patterns. Do you do any of these?

    Try the Thought Diary in the Activity tab to challenge and reframe your own negative thoughts. Practice this strategy as often as you can. With more practice, this process may start to happen automatically and this will help you to learn to think in more helpful ways.
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    Mental Filtering

    This thinking style involves a "filtering in" and "filtering out" process – a sort of "tunnel vision" where you focus on only one part of a situation and ignore the rest. Usually this means looking at the negative parts of a situation and forgetting the positive parts, and the whole picture is coloured by what may be a single negative detail.  

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    Jumping to Conclusions

    We jump to conclusions when we assume that we know what someone else is thinking, without having all of the information. We can also make predictions about what is going to happen in the future. In truth, no one knows what will happen in the future and we can't read the thoughts of others. Yet people who engage in this style of thinking tend to assume that other people are thinking negatively about them or that negative things will happen in the future, usually without much evidence that this is the case.

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    Personalisation

    This involves blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong or could go wrong, even when you may only be partly responsible or not responsible at all.  You might be taking 100% responsibility for things that happen outside or around you, or things that are complex and have many factors involved.

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    catastrophising
    Catastrophising

    Catastrophising occurs when we “blow things out of proportion“ and we view certain situations as terrible, awful, dreadful, and horrible, even though the problem itself may be quite small or short-term. 

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    Black & White Thinking

    This thinking style involves seeing only one extreme or the other. You are either wrong or right, good or bad and so on. There is no in-between or shades of grey.

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    'Shoulding' and 'Musting'

    Sometimes by saying “I should…” or “I must…” you can put unreasonable demands or pressure on yourself and others. Although these statements are not always unhelpful (e.g. “I should not get drunk and drive home”), they can sometimes create unrealistic expectations and pressure.

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    Overgeneralization
    Overgeneralisation

    When we overgeneralise, we take one instance in the past or present, and impose it on all current or future situations. If we say “You always…” or “Everyone…”, or “I never…” then we are probably overgeneralising.

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    Labelling
    Labelling

    We label ourselves and others when we make global statements based on behaviour in specific situations (e.g. labelling yourself as 'stupid' if you make one small mistake). We might use this label even though there are many more examples that aren’t consistent with that label.

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    Emotional Reasoning

    This thinking style involves basing your view of situations or yourself on the way you are feeling. For example, the only evidence that something bad is going to happen is that you feel like something bad is going to happen. 

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    Magnification
    Magnification and Minimisation

    In this thinking style, you magnify the positive attributes of other people and minimise your own positive attributes. It’s as though you’re explaining away your own positive characteristics or achievements as though they’re not important.

    Activities
    • Current Identify the situation
    • Identify your feelings
    • Identify your thoughts
    • Recognise unhelpful thinking patterns
    • Fact check your thoughts
    • Identify alternative thoughts
    • Identify new emotions
    • Complete
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    Thought Diary

    Follow the steps below to identify and challenge your unhelpful thoughts. Challenging your thoughts takes practice, so complete a thought diary any time you notice a a change in your mood or anxiety.

    Write down a situation or memory that’s made you feel particularly down or anxious.

    e.g. I made a mistake at work.

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