Black-and-white thinking. That’s when we assume we’ve failed if we don’t achieve perfection. Reality is usually a sliding scale, not a toggle switch. Personalizing. That’s when we blame ourselves for random negative occurrences. Catastrophizing. That’s when we assume the worst even with little evidence.2 To that list we can add a fourth: Universalizing. That’s when we take a bad experience and assume it’s true across the board. Where do these beliefs come from?
