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.  

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.