In previous chapters, we thoroughly examined how widespread the symptoms of depression are and how it impacts our lives. You might wonder: why do I feel so bad, and why does the future seem so bleak? Let's seek the answer to this question together.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy has had a significant impact on the development of psychotherapy and our understanding of depression. We can now confidently state that the negative state experienced in depression is a consequence of distorted negative thinking.
People suffering from depression tend to pay much more attention to negative events than positive ones. Neutral events are often interpreted negatively, while positive moments are ignored or devalued.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a person can change their life by changing their attitudes of mind.
William James
At the heart of depressive states are irrational pessimistic views.
These irrational thoughts can be categorized and divided into types, known as 'cognitive distortions'.
Cognitive distortions manifest in the following ways:
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Often, global conclusions are drawn from individual events: a single mistake is seen as evidence of one's incompetence, a single failure as an inability to achieve success in the future. Thoughts like 'I can't do anything, I can't cope with anything, everything is bad' are common in depression.
Similarly, people tend to predict their future in a negative light, seeing it in the darkest tones. Thoughts like 'I've already seen a psychologist, and it didn't help, so no one will' or 'I will always be alone, unable to arrange my life, and be unhappy' are typical of a depressive state.
You'll agree, it's hard to remain cheerful and maintain a good mood with such a pessimistic outlook on life.
However, there is good news: your thoughts are the key to freedom from depression. Learning to recognize and correct negative thoughts can change your mood and overall state.
It's important to learn to identify your irrational thoughts and categorize them into specific types of cognitive distortions.
This will allow you to recognize destructive thoughts at an early stage before they become rooted in your consciousness.
The list of cognitive distortions is quite extensive, and we have highlighted the most important ones, detailing them on the corresponding page of the automatic thoughts diary.
We suggest you go to this page and familiarize yourself with each distortion, as including all this material in the chapter would make the text too voluminous.
Read the description of each distortion and a dialogue illustrating how it manifests in real life.
Try to find similar traits in your life attitudes and start transforming destructive patterns into more rational ones.
The topic of cognitive distortions is so important that we will dedicate several future chapters to a detailed analysis of the most common ones.
