Checklist of Habitual Thinking Distortions (or automatic thoughts)

As you are listening to your client, you should be alert to:

1. All or nothing thinking: The client looks at things in absolute, black and white categories.
2.Over-generalization: Your client views a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental filter: Client dwells on the negatives and ignores the positives.
4. Discounting the positives: Client insists that his accomplishments or positive qualities don't count.
5. Jumping to conclusions: (A) Mind-reading -- assumes that people are reacting negatively to them when there is no definite evidence, or (B) Fortune telling -- they arbitrarily predict that things will turn out badly.
6. Magnification or minimization: Client blows things way out of proportion, or shrinks their importance inappropriately.
7. Emotional Reasoning: Client reasons how they feel. "I feel like an idiot, so I really must be one." Or "I don't feel like doing this, so I'll put it off."
8. "Should" statements: Clients criticize themselves or other people with "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts." "Musts," "oughts," and "have-to's" are similar offenders.
9. Labeling. Clients identify with their shortcomings. Instead of saying "I made a mistake," they say "I'm a jerk," or "a fool" or "a loser."
10. Personalization and blame: They blame themselves for something they weren't entirely responsible for, or they blame other people and overlook ways that their own attitudes and behavior might contribute to the problem.

(This list contributed by Lou Lazerson, who can be emailed at lynnlaz@aol.com, or check Lou's website)

Coaching tools to change Client thinking patterns

Step 1. Identify and note Client's Automatic Thoughts (AT)

Step 2. Identify the exact distortion in each AT

Step 3. Ask client to create a rational response, more realistic and positive ideas. "What would be an alternate way to respond to this challenge?"

Cognitive Coaching focuses on identifying, evaluating, and changing a person's chronic negative thoughts. Cognitive therapy is based upon 4 assumptions:

1. ALL PEOPLE ACTIVELY CONSTRUCT THEIR OWN REALITY. All of us actively construct personal meanings out of our life experiences.

2. YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU THINK. Your feelings are created by your thoughts and not the actual situation. All of your experiences are interpreted by your brain and given a conscious meaning before you have a feeling response.

3. MOST NEGATIVE FEELINGS COME FROM DISTORTED THOUGHTS. Negative feelings such as depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, hopelessness are directly related to specific and distorted thought patterns.

4. YOU CAN CHANGE THE WAY YOU FEEL. You can learn to be aware of your distorted thinking patterns and learn to change them to be more realistic and positive thoughts. As you make these thought modificatons, you will be able to change your negative mood to a more positive one.
(adapted from David Burns, Ten Days to Self-Esteem)

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