Errors in thinking (known as cognitive distortions) can contribute to depression and anxiety in yourself or your child. The following is a list of the most common errors people make:

Filtering

This error involves only focusing on the negative aspects of events while ignoring positive aspects (e.g., dwelling on the shots you missed in a basketball game rather than all of the ones you made).

Black-and-White Thinking

Failing to see the middle ground is characteristic of this error (e.g., you view all of the students in your school as really nice or really mean).

Overgeneralization

Overgeneralization is taking one event and generalizing it to every other situation (e.g., you trip in the hall and believe you always embarrass yourself).

Jumping to Conclusions

This error is characterized by thinking something is true without any evidence (e.g., your friend doesn’t text you back, so you assume they don’t want to hang out with you anymore).

Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing is assuming the worst will happen (e.g., you assume that you will forget the dance routine and everyone will laugh at you).

Personalization

This error is marked by believing you are responsible for an event in which you had no control (e.g., you blame yourself for your sister having a bad day at school even though you barely saw her that day).

Control Fallacies

Believing that you are a victim of bad fate or are being punished is characteristic of this error (e.g., you lose your homework and believe you are cursed).

Fallacy of Fairness

Fallacy of fairness is when you believe the world should occur based on your views of fairness (e.g., you believe it is unfair that you are getting yelled at for being late to school when your alarm clock did not go off).

Blaming

Blaming is when you point the finger at others for your problems (e.g., you stub your toe and blame your brother for playing his music too loud).

Shoulds

This error is marked by a belief that the world should be a certain way (e.g., believing you should be better at sports).

Emotional Reasoning

When you assume that a feeling is a fact, you are making this error (e.g., you feel afraid while on a chairlift at a ski resort, so you take this feeling to indicate something must be wrong with the chairlift).

Fallacy of Change

This error occurs when you believe others should change if you want them to (e.g., my boyfriend will want to spend more time with me if I criticize him enough).

Labeling

Labeling is when you assign negative labels to yourself or others (e.g., “I’m a loser”).

Always Being Right

This final error is marked by believing you are the only one who is correct (e.g., you get into an argument about what movie is better, believing your view is the only right one).

Being familiar with these errors will help you recognize when they occur in yourself or your child, leading to sounder thinking.

Reference:

Rego, S., & Fader, S. (2018). The 10-step depression relief workbook: A cognitive behavioral therapy approach. Emeryville, CA: Althea Press.