All or Nothing Thinking — You look at things in absolute, black and white categories; shades of gray do not exist. You are either dieting, or you aren't. Small indulgences will destroy the whole day's efforts.

Overgeneralization — You view one or two negative events as a never ending pattern of defeat.

Mental Filter — You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.

Discounting the Positive — You twist positives into negatives.

Jumping to Conclusions — You jump to conclusions that are not warranted by the facts. Fortune telling and mind-reading are two common forms of jumping to conclusions.

a.

Fortune telling: You predict that things will turn out badly. Before you even get to your first support group meeting you tell yourself, "I'll be the only really heavy person there and I'll feel terrible."

b.

Mind-reading: You assume that someone doesn't like you or is looking down on you.

Magnification or Minimization — You blow things way out of proportion
(magnification) or shrink them in your mind's eye (minimization.) This is also called the "binocular effect".

Emotional Reasoning — You reason from how you feel: "I feel like an idiot, therefore I must be one" or "I feel hopeless, therefore I must be hopeless," or "I feel inferior, therefore I must be inferior."

"Should" Statements — You beat up on yourself or other people with "shoulds," "shouldn'ts," "musts," "oughts," and "have tos."

a.

Should statements that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and depression. "I shouldn't have eaten that piece of cake! Now I've blown my whole diet!" Or "I shouldn't be so fat. I should be able to eat less."

b.

Should statements that are directed against the world lead to frustration.
"The networks should ban all those food commercials."

c.

Should statement that are directed against other people lead to resentment and anger: "You shouldn't eat that in front of me!" "You should diet with me."

Labeling and Mislabeling — Labeling is an extreme form of overgeneralization. You label your entire self based on some flaw or shortcoming. Instead of saying "I made a mistake," you tell yourself, "I'm stupid" or "I'm a big fat loser."

a.

Mislabeling is where you describe an event or problem with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. "Not being able to eat a piece of that pie is killing me." "Vegetables taste like garbage unless they are smothered in butter."

Personalization and Blame — You blame yourself (personalization) or others (blame) in a judgmental way.

a.

Self-blame is usually associated with feelings such as inadequacy, guilt, shame and depression.

b.

Other-blame is usually associated with feelings of frustration, resentment and anger.

Adapted from, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, by David Burns, M.D., 1980