Sometimes how you think about a situation can impact on your ability to successfully address thinking patterns or behaviour. These are known as common thinking errors.
- ‘All or nothing’ thinking – For example I will never masturbate again to stop my attraction to children without thinking of how to manage sexual needs.
- Over-generalising – over generalising from one specific experience/situation to expectations of future experiences eg I couldn’t stop my fantasy so I won’t try again.
- Shoulds/musts – rigid expectations of what you or others should do, or of what should happen in life. This can include the things that you believe ‘must’ happen in order for you to be happy eg I have to have a sexual relationship to be happy.
- Selective filtering – only paying attention to certain types of information (typically discounting positive information) eg a particular person rejected me
- Jumping to conclusions – eg thinking this is just the way I am.
- Catastrophizing – over-reacting to perceived negative events or setbacks, g. a lapse results in giving up.
Read through the common thinking errors below and see if any apply to you. When you notice yourself thinking in this way, challenge the thought by asking yourself how true it is, what evidence you have to support it and whether you have any counter-evidence to suggest the thought is not based in truth. Think about how you can replace the thinking error with more realistic thoughts.
