Ten cognitive distortions. My bad. I guess they can be considered has dysfunctions as well. Lol

Feeling good by Dr. David Burns
The name of the Author and book.

I posted this because it might help some of you identify what you are doing that causes you to have depression. I really think my depression can be managed with some help from books like this and talking to others about it.

Another reason I posted is because I am nosey. Does everyone suffer from all ten, do they go hand in hand or am I just really screwed up.

If I have any of them at all, it's slight. I used to be somewhat like that...maybe, but as I've gotten older, the way I look at things has changed.

Is a pdf http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/docs/cbt_jillianball.pdf

Thanks Drizzle very helpful full.

I read this book roughly 20 yrs. ago. It is a very good book and helpful, but I don't personally believe that these things cause depression at all. Everyone can relate to these things, not just people who suffer with depression. That being said, I do believe that reading self help books in conjunction with therapy and taking meds(for those of us who need them) can help us to manage our depression more by helping us to identify things and understand how to challenge our way of thinking.

To answer your question there is way more then ten in the list of cognitive distortions. When you start adding disorders like Bipolar and schizophrenia you start to add magical thinking and the likes. So no, you're not doing badly if your only struggling with ten. There will always be someone worse off than you, despite your thinking. That's a cognitive distortion in it's self. I tried CBT once and didn't get much from it but some swear by it

Very interesting Drew.

Looking at the list, I can definitely identify with if not all, most of them to some degree or another. Honestly , how STRONGLY I identify ( or feel ) some of them depend on the circumstance, my general mood on any given day , what may be going on with my family and friends... etc.

I can't say that thinking some of those things cause my depression or my depression causes those way of cognitive thinking.. the chicken or the egg theory? I too believe that self help books can be very beneficial to help change our thought processes if we are willing to do the work to make the changes ( and that's the hard part).

big hugs
xo

Me.

ah yes self sabotage something that I need to learn how to not do.... at least I have comedy and respidone to keep me going but yes thank you for reminding me that I need to be more realistic hugs!

#7, emotional reasoning is the only one I had to agree with. I don't know if that is good or bad. The Feeling Good book by Dr. David Burns is often recommended by many Therapists. It's a very good book. I highly recommend it for those who like to read. Hugs GB
P.S. thanks for sharing drew!

I have three of David Burns books including Feeling Good. I cried the first time I read it because I identified with all of those. Suddenly I realized most of my struggles were because of faulty thinking.

i think all of those are the same problem... only seeing the negative

society, and especially the media, train us from an early age to only see the negative in things... everything on tv has to be bad or it wont get viewers (specially the news)... and when everything around us is only seeing the bad, we fall into the same habit

if anyone is doing this, theres a fix... but its not easy...

when you catch yourself seeing the bad in something, stop, and force yourself to see 2 positive things about it... sometimes its hard, but it can always be done

someone smashed your car? sure, its easy to see lots of bad things about it... but if nobody got hurt, thats a positive... if you get body work done through insurance, thats a good thing... and maybe getting into that lil fender bender kept you from getting into a bigger accident down the road

it might be the hardest thing youve ever had to do... but it IS possible and it DOES help

going outside and seeing the wonders of nature is really good for helping with this

I have certainly had difficulties with all ten at one point. I spent years in therapy working on changing my way of thinking. I do manage much better today for the most part but we all have bad days. I think my biggest remaining challenge is obsessive thinking. It's really tough to shut down constant negative thoughts.

That's exactly what I do Keleypat. I do all 10 of the disorders now, sometimes it seems like I do all of them at the same time.