Cognitive Therapy

Triple column Technique

Chemist
This short document contains my interpretation and editing
of extracts from the “Feeeling Good Handbook” an excellent
manual of cognitive therapy by David Burns.

Cognitive therapy is experimentally proven as an effective

technique in the treatment of depression and in remedying
distorted and negative thinking patterns. In my opinion,
this is the finest inner game technique available.

Firstly I will outline the cognitive distortions – ways of

thinking that lead to negative emotions and behaviour, that
have no (or very little) basis in reality. Then I will
introduce a technique to deal with and change these
distorions and negative thinking patterns.

If you use this exercise, you will often experience

immediate relief from the troubling thoughts and emotions
you may be experiencing. Apply it often and your automatic
thought patterns will be reshaped and modified to produce
powerful effects on your success with women and your
emotional health in general.
Cognitive Distortions

All or Nothing Thinking: This refers to your tendency to evaluate your

personal qualities in extreme, black or white categories. For example,
a prominent politician told me “Because I lost the race for governor,
I’m a zero.” A straight A student who received a B on an exam concluded
“now I’m a total failure.” All or nothing thinking forms the bases for
perfectionism. It causes you to fear any mistake or imperfection
because you will then see yourself as a complete loser, and you will
feel inadequate and worthless.
This way of evaluating things is unrealistic because life is rarely
completely either one way or the other. For example, no one is
absolutely brilliant or totally stupid. Similarly, no one is either
completely attractive or totally ugly. The technical term for this type
of perceptual error is “dichotomous thinking”. You see everything as
black and white – shades of grey do not exist.

Overgeneralization: You arbitrarily conclude that one thing that

happened to you will happen over and over again. Since what happened is
invariably unpleasant, you feel upset.

Mental Filter: You pick out a negative detail in an event or situation

and dwell on it exclusively, thus perceiving that the whole situation
is negative.

Disqualifying the positive: You don’t just ignore the positive

experience; you cleverly and swiftly turn them into their nightmarish
opposite.

Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though

there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusions.

i) Mind Reading: You conclude that someone is reacting negatively

towards you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
ii) The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn
out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an
already established fact.

Magnification (catastrophizing) or Minimisation: You exaggerrate the

importance of things or you innapropraitely shrink things until they
appear tiny.

Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions always

reflect the way things really are “I feel it, therefore it must be
true”.

Should Statements: Directing should, ought and must statements at

yourself or others.

Labelling and Mislabelling: Insteas of describing your error, you

attach a negative label to yourself e.g “I’m a loser”. Mislabelling
involves describing an event with emotionally loaded language.

Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative

external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
Restructuring Your Thoughts
So, now that you’ve read through and understand the ways of “shitty
thinking” that I’ve described above its time to change the way that you
think. The method for this is deceptively simple.

Firstly, notice the upsetting or negative thought that you have or have
had.

Secondly, notice which cognitive distortion this thought would fit

into.

Thirdly, think of an objective thought ( a rational response) that

could be equally or more true.

Heres an example:

Automatic Thought: I never do anything right.

Distortion: Overgeneralisation.

Rational Response: Never? There are many times ive done things right.

Automatic Thought: Girls hate me

Distortion: overgeneralisation, mental filter, Mind Reading.

Rational response: All girls? Some girls have thought Im great and have
said so. Sure there are some that may not get on with me, but people
are different. How do I know that they hate me? Have they said that
they do or do I mean something else?

This is deceptively simple, but is at the heart of cognitive therapy.

YOU MUST WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN. That is the key. Ive provided a
worksheet for you on the next page.
Automatic Thought Cognitive Distortion Rational response