So the theory behind cognitive distortions was first noted by psychologist Aaron Beck in his 1963 paper, thinking and depression, idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions.

Beck was actually conducting research into the treatment of depression in the night 1960s and a recurring theme, he noticed among his depressed patients were a crucial characteristic of the cognition with this content was that they represented varying degrees of distortion of reality.

While some degree of inaccuracy and inconsistency would be expected in the cognition of any individual.

The distinguishing characteristic of the depressed patients was that they showed a systematic error.

A bias against themselves.

He said His patients had faulty information processing.

He, the depressed patient tends to perceive his present future and the outside world in a negative way and consequently shows a biased interpretation of his experiences, negative expectancies as to the probable success of anything he undertakes and a massive amount of self criticism.

In his 1963 paper, he included five cognitive distortions and then in 1979 Beck added an additional two to his published cognitive therapy of depression.

Now, I'm not gonna lie.

Okay, the seven cognitive distortions that Beck wrote about and like how he chose to name them is incredibly confusing.

He calls them things like arbitrary interpretation, selective abstraction.

Absolutist IQ dichotomous thinking, etcetera.

So instead of like listing those out and explaining them to you, I'm going skip to 1980 when an early student of Aaron Becks named dr David Burns, built upon the work of his teacher with his book.

Feeling good.

The new mood therapy Burns not only included what Beck had written, but he just gave everything way better names, facts.

Sorry beck.

So according to Burns, the unhelpful thinking styles are all or nothing.

Thinking I'm an absolutely horrible person.

I'm a murderer And you picked me.

This is so much about me over generalization.

I can't date actors.

They're all trash.

Hey, do not put us in the same category.

Mental filter.

Wow, 99 People liked my video and one person disliked it.

That one person's opinion means so much more.

I'm gonna focus my entire experience on it, disqualifying the positive.

You're clearly not as bad a person as I am.

I've killed like 33 people.

I've watched the light go out of their eyes and I've loved it.

You're just being nice.

How many people have you killed?

Clearly not enough jumping to conclusions.

Also called mind reading or the fortune teller.

Dude, you have to stop jumping to conclusions all the time.

Every time I don't text you back in like two seconds, you automatically assume I hate you.

You hate me.

Oh my God.

Magnification and minimization.

I'm gonna look at my errors and my imperfections using a microscope.

But then my accomplishments and strengths with binoculars, emotional reasoning, your honor, the evidence I present to you today to put this defendant in jail for the rest of his life are my fields.

I feel very strongly that my client is innocent and telling the truth and I feel that he is bad vibes.

I rest my case.

Should statements.

Hey, I was just wondering if oh my God, I'm sorry I should do this.

I must do that.

I should do this.

I must do that.

I didn't realize you were masturbating.

That is not a joke.

Psychologist Albert Ellis describes the attempts we make to motivate ourselves using statements like must or should as masturbation labeling and mislabeling.

I am stupid.

I am ugly.

I am hopeless and personalization and blame.

Oh my God!

Did you see the news?

A tornado hit Kansas.

Oh my God, I am so sorry.

I don't know how I did that.

I definitely didn't do it on purpose.

So as well as all of these cognitive distortions described by Beck and Burns.

So many other cognitive distortions and biases have been identified and uncovered by researchers.

The list is truly endless.

Yay, now I know what you're thinking.

Okay, Why do I think in these very unhelpful ways?

Well according to CBT is cognitive model.

We have three different levels of cognition.

You have core beliefs at the bottom then intermediate beliefs which are rules, attitudes, assumptions and then at the top you have automatic thoughts.

So our core beliefs are are fundamental levels of belief are intermediate beliefs develop as we make sense of the world around us and then the automatic thoughts are specific to the situation we're experiencing the cognitive models, suggestion is obvious.

We are prone to thoughts that reflect our core and intermediate beliefs.

We are biased towards what we believe.

If you've done my guidebook, you know all about subconscious belief, reprogramming and have likely identified and rewritten core beliefs that don't serve you and you understand the power behind our thought and assumptions and how they create a reality.

Even Beck believes this.

So in his cognitive therapy of depression, he says that a person's cognitive errors are derived from some type of assumption, but our brains evolved to think abstractly and they were optimized for survival, not accuracy.

So in 1998, Paul, Gilbert actually published a very fascinating take on cognitive distortions.

He said that cognitive distortions are you guessed it resulting from unconscious motivations and conflicts originating in childhood.

Yes, that is right, Children.

It always comes back to childhood, doesn't it?

One thing that I thought that Gilbert, did that was very great is that he looked at all of the cognitive distortions and saw the ways in which they're actually helpful.

So they're great for threat assessment for quickly evaluating a situation for providing us with attractive trait such as modesty to help us with mating way to reframe Gilbert.

You know, we love a silver lining.

Gilbert's ideas have since developed into what's known as compassion focused therapy, a distinct therapeutic approach when you're not combating your cognitive distortions, but rather articulating.

It's no wonder you think this way you have a tricky brain that evolved for survival, not happiness.

What I love about CFT is that their approach is to soften your own attitude towards yourself and view your mental filters as the product of your evolved brain and not your personal responsibility.

And in addition to CFT, there are other ways of treating our thinking traps, whether you rewrite the core beliefs that generate your automatic thoughts or work top down and catch your automatic thoughts and challenge them again and again.

Either way, making your restructured thinking habitual is the aim of treating unhelpful thought styles so that when an automatic thought comes up asking yourself, well, what is the evidence for this thought being true becomes second nature.

And eventually with enough training and intention and practice and repetition and repetition and repetition, you can lift the mental filters off of your brain and see things in a less negatively biased way.

I'm anaconda.

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