Cognitive behavioral therapy calls them thinking traps: habits of thought that feel like accurate reporting and are not. Naming the one you are in is most of the work.
Seeing things in black and white with no middle ground.
Your brain compresses nuance into extremes. If it is not perfect, it feels like a failure.
Ask yourself: What middle outcome am I skipping?
A kinder version: Even if this is imperfect, it can still be meaningful progress.
Believing that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won't be able to stand it.
Catastrophizing involves anticipating the worst possible outcome, even when it is highly unlikely. It is an evolutionary alarm system that overshoots and treats fear as proof.
Ask yourself: What is the most likely outcome if I zoom out?
A kinder version: This is uncomfortable, not catastrophic. I can handle the next step.
Assuming you know what others think about you.
You fill in other people’s private thoughts with negative assumptions and react as if those assumptions are facts.
Ask yourself: What observable facts do I actually have?
A kinder version: I do not know what they think yet; I can check instead of guessing.
Predicting a negative outcome without considering other, more likely possibilities. The assumption is that things will inevitably go wrong.
Fortune telling treats a negative prediction as a proven fact before it happens. It bypasses rational evidence-gathering and jumps straight to the conclusion of failure or catastrophe.
Ask yourself: What evidence supports this prediction today?
A kinder version: I cannot predict the future; I can prepare and adapt.
Treating feelings as facts.
Because you feel fear, guilt, or shame, the mind concludes the threat or fault must be objectively true.
Ask yourself: What emotion is loud right now, and what are the facts?
A kinder version: My feeling is valid, and it is not the full evidence set.
Rigid rules about how things must be.
Strict internal rules create pressure, shame, and anger when real life does not match perfection.
Ask yourself: Is this rule humane and sustainable?
A kinder version: I prefer this outcome, but I can be flexible and still effective.
Assigning a rigid, global, and negative characteristic to yourself or others, often based on a single event or specific behavior, rather than describing the action itself.
Labeling is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of saying “I made a mistake on this report,” you attach a global, negative label to yourself: “I am a failure.” This cognitive leap transforms a specific, isolated action into a rigid identity.
Ask yourself: What happened specifically, without identity labels?
A kinder version: This was one behavior in one moment, not my whole identity.
Dismissing good things as flukes or irrelevant.
Positive evidence gets filtered out, so your self-view stays skewed toward the negative.
Ask yourself: What positive data am I deleting right now?
A kinder version: This success counts, even if it was not perfect.
Turning one event into a never-ending pattern.
One data point gets stretched into an identity or life pattern without enough evidence.
Ask yourself: How many times has this actually happened?
A kinder version: This time was hard, but it does not define the full pattern.
Believing that you are entirely to blame for something that wasn't entirely your fault, or conversely, blaming others for something that was your fault. It is the assumption of outsized responsibility for external events.
This distortion operates on a flawed mental model where the individual places themselves at the center of the universe. When adverse events occur, the immediate, automatic assumption is personal responsibility.
Ask yourself: Which factors were outside my control?
A kinder version: I can own my part without carrying all the blame.
Recognising the trap is the first step; the next is writing the thought down and testing it. Relief walks through that process on your iPhone — capture the thought, name the distortion, weigh the evidence for and against, then write a more balanced version. Everything stays encrypted on your device. No account, no cloud.