Irrational Thinking Styles – Personalizing

Irrational Thinking Styles: Personalizing

The tendency to relate everything that happens around you as directly related to you in some way. For example, if your partner says they’re tired, then it means that they are tired of you; or if your children are unhappy, then it’s because you are a failure as a parent. Again, this usually only happens in a negative way; we seldom think that if someone’s happy then we are responsible for their happiness. But the minute they are unhappy, then it’s somehow our fault.

Example

“She didn’t talk to me, I must have said or done something wrong. I wonder what I did to upset her?”

Instead try

“She didn’t talk to me. I wonder if perhaps she just didn’t see me or had something else on her mind. It probably hasn’t even got anything to do with me.”

Black and White Thinking

Catastrophizing

Emotional Thinking

The Fairness Fallacy

Mind Reading

Overgeneralizing

Personalizing

Shoulds

Tunnel Vision