Cognitive Distortions

David Burns named the thinking patterns that make a bad day look worse. This worksheet takes five of them and gives you five thoughts to match. Each match comes with a question to ask yourself when that pattern turns up.

What it asks you

1. Meet the five. All-or-nothing thinking, catastrophising, mind reading, personalisation and shoulds. Each one has a line from David Burns saying what it does.
2. Match the thought. The thoughts come one at a time. Tap the pattern each one fits.
3. Read your matches. See how many you got, the best fit for each thought, and the question that goes with its pattern.

The longer read on this one is Five cognitive distortions worth knowing by name.