Top Highlights

• 3. Mental Filter. You pick out a negative detail in any situation and dwell on it exclusively, thus perceiving that the whole situation is negative.
• 2. Overgeneralization. When I was eleven years old,
• You arbitrarily conclude that one thing that happened to you once will occur over and over again, will multiply like the Jack of Spades. Since what happened is invariably unpleasant, you feel upset.
• 4. Disqualifying the Positive. An even more spectacular mental illusion is the persistent tendency of some depressed individuals to transform neutral or even positive experiences into negative ones. You don’t just ignore positive experiences, you cleverly and swiftly turn them into their nightmarish opposite. I call this “reverse alchemy.”
• 5. Jumping to Conclusions. You arbitrarily jump to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation.