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Thought Record

Date & Time Discribe Situation, Identify Feelings and/or What were you thinking about? Then review Identify Thinking Error & List Evidence Indicating Write A Balanced Thought Integrating Both
WHEN Bodily Sensations, & Rate Intensity From your thoughts to identify emotionally charged Troubling Thoughts Are Not 100% True Troubling Thoughts And The Evidence Indicating
0-100% thoughts. Identify the emotion and rate intensity Otherwise
0-10.

COMMON THINKING ERRORS: 1. All-or-Nothing Thinking, 2. Overgeneralization, 3. Mental Filter, 4. Disqualifying the Positive, 5. Jumping to Conclusions (either-- Mind Reading or - Fortune
Telling), 6. Magnification (Catastophizing or Minimization), 7. Emotional Reasoning, 8. Labeling & Mislabeling, 9. Personalization
James A. Carter-Hargrove, Ph.D., ABMP (Form: THTREC.SAM)
1001 Pyramid Way, Ste 402, Spatks, NV 775.771.1010
Distortion Name Description
All-or-Nothing Evaluations are made of situations, your performance, and outcomes in terms of absolute black and white or good and bad categorization. There are no shades of gray or any gradations or degrees between
the polar opposite categories. Thus things are all good or all bad with no in between.
Thinking PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
Since you're not on my side then you are my enemy.
You didn't cook dinner tonight. That makes you a bad wife.
Overgeneralization This is taking a single negative incident or event and extending in your mind into a never-ending pattern of defeat, failure, or other negative outcome. So for example, if you were to have a negative encounter
or misunderstanding with someone important to you, you automatically think he doesn't understand you (which may be accurate in that single situation). However, using overgeneralization as your reflexive
way of reasoning within yourself you go on to think...he never has understood me, he never will, no one has ever understood me or cared, no one ever will or ever can. You then begin to believe you will
always be isolated and misunderstood.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
You were in bed when I got home. You are always sleeping instead of helping out around here.
You don't want to have sex? You never do! I might as well get it eslewhere!
Mental Filter This is the process of noticing or picking out a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively to the point of excluding other aspects of the situation which are positive and nullify the negative detail. This
would be like having a special dinner planned and focusing on the fact that one dish was flawed to such a degree that you end up reasoning that the entire dinner was a disastrous failure and you looked like
an incompetent fool as a result.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
When you said all those nice things there was a funny tone in your voice and look on your face. I just know you didn't mean any of them. They were just empty words!
Disqualifying the This amounts to the ongoing rejection, disqualification, or minimization of positive experiences by insisting that they don't count for some reason or other. This process helps in maintaining negative beliefs
that might otherwise be contradicted by evidence accumulated from everyday experiences. An example of this would be noticing that you are feeling good but reasoning that bad feelings must follow so you
Positive begin to feel bad about the fact that you were so foolish and gullible as to let yourself be tricked into letting your guard down for even a moment and feeling good.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
I had to ask you to do so doing it doesn't mean you care about me. If you cared I wouldn't have to ask!

Jumping to This is a process of making negative interpretations even though there may be no readily available facts or evidence that would convincingly support your conclusion: Two examples of this are listed below:
1. Arbitrarily reasoning that someone is reacting or thinking negatively about you, and you do not inquire to illicit substantiating evidence. An example might be meeting an acquaintance who does not
Conclusions: acknowledge you. You then begin to reason that this fact means he both doesn't like or want to speak with you. You do not ask if something is on the person's mind or that they may be preoccupied.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
1. Mind Reading When you I knew you were thinking about how I dissappointed you. I can't seem to ever do anything right to make you happy!
2. This amounts to making negative predictions about future events and their outcomes. You then reason that your prediction is an already established fact and base your behavior and further thinking on
this information. This does not allow for the possibility that things may be neutral or positive. An example might be predicting that you will not have a good time at an event and then since you consider this a
forgone conclusion don't even go to the event.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
I know what is going to happen next. It is always the same. We're going to have a big fight and I'll have hell to pay for days.
2. Fortune Telling
Magnification This is either an exaggerating of real qualities or events (i.e. such a mistake on your part reasoning it into the end of the world or magnifying someone else's achievement to the point that you see them as far
above you and stop trying to relate to them as a result) or shrinking the importance of things until they appear small an insignificant or inconsequential (i.e. your desirable qualities are reasoned away or
(Catastophizing or someone else's undesirable qualities are treated as thought they are inconsequential or nonexistent making them appear far nicer and better than they are).
Minimization) PERSONAL EXAMPLES:
Emotional Reasoning This involves reasoning from your feelings outward and than interpreting situations and events based on your feeling state. You don't further explore to see if indeed the situation or event really is negative.

Labeling & This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of behaviorally describing an event, situation, or negative outcome a negative label is attached to the self. For example, "Since my speech didn't go as
well as I had hoped....I am a looser." This can be applied to others as well. "Since he/she did __________ , they are a stupid self centered creep." This approach uses highly provocative emotional
Mislabeling language thus implying many negative characteristics which really do not fit at all.
Personalization This amounts to taking almost everything as though you were somehow the cause or target of the actions, event, behavior, or outcome. An example of this would be refusing to talk to someone about
something important but potentially volatile because of reasoning that the other will become upset because of the discussion and that would be the fault of the person who initiated the conversation. This
distortion mechanism at times, involves taking responsibility for the reactions and feelings of others.
PERSONAL EXAMPLES:

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