11 Common Errors in Thinking

According to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we often feel anxious, upset and annoyed because of certain errors in our thinking. These are faulty ways of looking at life which are automatic - and also very common. However, if we identify and change our way of thinking then our feelings are reactions will be much healthier. These errors in thinking include the following:

1. All –or – Nothing Thinking: Where the person evaluates themselves, others, situations and the world in extreme categories. It doesn’t allow for grey areas in thinking.  “I’m a terrible parent.”

2. Overgeneralizing: Thinking that because a bad experience happened once, then that’s the way it’s always going to be. For example, “I know I’ll fail my driving test. I’ve already failed it three times”.

3. Discounting the Positives: Ignoring the positive aspects of a situation and saying that they don’t count. For example, generally getting  good marks in school – but not praising yourself for that. One paper gets some negative feedback and you tell yourself you’re a useless student. The positive results are ignored.

4. Jumping to Conclusions -This has two aspects to it: mind reading and fortune telling.

•  Mind reading
 is thinking you know what others are thinking without any evidence. For example, a person with social anxiety assumes her colleagues think she’s useless at her job.
•  Fortune telling is predicting that the future will turn out badly. For example, going for a routine mammogram and concluding that you have cancer.

5. Magnifying / Minimising: Evaluating the importance of a negative event, or the lack of evidence of a positive event, in a distorted manner. (Blowing things out of proportion.) For example, concluding that your sister doesn’t like you anymore because she forgot to send a  birthday card.

6. Emotional Reasoning: Believing that something must be true because it feels true. For example, when your boyfriend is an hour late in arriving for a film, you conclude that he isn’t interested in you. You discount the fact that, maybe, the bus was late, or he was delayed at work.

7. Labelling: Using a label (bad mother, idiot) to describe a behaviour - and then taking on board everything associated with that label. Seeing things is global terms. For example, a friend says or does something thoughtless. You label then them as “a terrible friend” and now you interpret anything they say in a hostile and negative way.

8. Personalization and blame: Where a person totally blames themselves for something that’s gone wrong when it is not their fault. For example, a soccer team member thinks she’s “put the coach in a bad mood” because she missed a goal. She discounts the fact that the coach may have been annoyed before the game started. The opposite is to totally blame another for something. For example, a wife may blame her husband for the break up of their marriage and not admit that she had any part in it.

9. Catastrophizing: (Similar to fortune telling) Dwelling on the worst possible outcome. For example, an employee had to do a presentation. He became obsessed with thoughts of performing badly, letting the company down, losing his job, then losing his home and family.

10. Making “should” or “must” statements:  Where the person has a fixed idea of how they, others or life should be. These become “rigid demands”. When they person is disappointed (as will inevitably happen) they become very upset and overestimate how bad this will be for them. For example, a student berates themselves for only getting 89% in an exam – when they wanted all their results to be in the 90s.

11. Selective abstraction: Dwelling on one negative detail instead of seeing the bigger picture. For example, a girl gets a haircut and 8 of her friends say they love it. One person says they preferred her old style. The girl thinks about that for hours and hours and wonders if she should have changed her hairstyle.

These 11 cognitive errors are all habits of thinking that are deeply ingrained. The good news is, like any habit, these patterns of thinking can be broken and discarded through awareness and practice.

Do you need dental therapy?

When Kate Middleton got engaged, her smile became noticeably brighter. Was it love or a really good dentist? 

The latter, according to Dr. Bernard Touati, a close friend and colleague of Kate's rumored dentist Didier Fillion. In an interview with The Times Magazine, Touati claims that Fillion sculpted the Duchess' teeth, using a radical new approach to creating the perfectly 'imperfect' smile. 

"He did some little micro-rotations onKate Middleton so that it looks like a natural, healthy smile, but not artificial," Touati said. 

Micro-rotation is a process that targets each tooth from positioning to shape, in order to complement a person's overall look, as opposed to creating the textbook one-size-fits-all smile. Fillion's innovative process requires invisible braces applied behind the teeth to slightly shift each tooth in various directions so they're neat but not precisely aligned. Another approach is chiseling each tooth for a look that's described in the industry as "harmonious asymmetry."

Fillion has never confirmed his royal client list, but in addition to Middleton, he's believed to treat Monaco's royal family on a monthly basis.

What makes his work so coveted is his approach to creating a natural, rather than perfect, smile.

"In Europe we want something more adapted to each personality, not like America. Tom Cruise's teeth are too perfect for me," Dr. Fillion has said. "I don't like teeth that look like piano keys,"

Neither does Madonna. Remember her intentional gap tooth phase? And how about Kristen Dunst'ssnaggled fang that's helped foster her edgy, indie credibility. On his website, Fillion states his philosophy simply: "Smile is a language. "

As the kind of celebrity more often photographed than interviewed, Kate's teeth had to speak volumes about her image. They needed to to be both polished and slightly imperfect, both regal and grounded, in order to appeal to a wide audience. And Fillion was just the man to do it-his innovative dental practices go beyond technology into what sounds more like psychoanalysis. " I consider every single patient as a unique individual with a past history, with concerns, and also with dreams," he writes on his website. "It is important for me to understand what the patient wishes to achieve through his orthodontic treatment."

Does a princes really need dental therapy? When your teeth are constantly competing with those crazy hats, you better believe it.

By Piper Weiss