The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University
The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University
The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University
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Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist who developed Cognitive <strong>The</strong>rapy, identifiedseveral logical errors in the thinking <strong>of</strong> people who are prone to depression. One<strong>of</strong> his colleagues, David Burns, lists some <strong>of</strong> these errors in his book FeelingGood: <strong>The</strong> New Mood <strong>The</strong>rapy:• All-or-nothing thinking: Things are either all good or all bad. You areeither a success or a failure. You are either a good parent or a bad parent.• Overgeneralizing: If one bad thing happens, then bad things will alwayshappen.• Ignoring the positive: If a good thing happens, you ignore it, because, <strong>of</strong>course, only bad things happen to you.• Mind reading: You believe that people are always thinking about you, andthat what they are thinking about you is always bad.• Fortune telling: You believe you know yourself well enough to predict thefuture, and the future will turn out badly.• Emotional reasoning: You believe that your feelings are an accuratereflection <strong>of</strong> reality. If you feel something is awful, then it is awful.• Labeling yourself: You take labels people may have given you when youwere little, or just to tease and insult you, as true descriptions <strong>of</strong> yourself.In fact, you continue labeling yourself negatively, and believing thesenegative labels are true.HMOR.July2005.Muñoz.doc 80