Good day, dear reader! In my previous article, I already described what cognitive distortions are, how they affect us and our state, self-esteem, and gave an example of one of the cognitive distortions. I would like to reveal a few more of the most common cognitive distortions, as well as show how they affect our self-esteem. Perhaps one of the most common requests addressed to psychologists is how to raise self-esteem? Our own feeling of ourselves as worthless, uninteresting, boring, unhappy, useless to anyone is a kind of construct of adaptation in society. And all this has a secondary benefit. For example, you can receive attention without having to make an effort. But if the whole construct works, there is also a benefit in this, then what makes a person still wonder about raising low self-esteem? The chain works this way: thinking about yourself in a negative way causes the release of hormones that make a person feel lousy, thereby giving an alarming signal that something is going wrong. The human body is not its own enemy, and if the biochemical balance is disturbed, it will definitely let you know about it. And then the question arises: what to do? It all starts with thinking. Work on changing your state and increasing self-esteem must begin with rationalizing your own thinking. Knowledge about irrational beliefs and critical thinking will greatly help in this process. Let's look at examples: Statement: “I have problems in my personal life because all men don’t like me” - this cognitive distortion can be called overgeneralization. Now let’s rationalize this construction: I had an experience when Petya Ivanov rejected me, it was unpleasant for me and now I’d rather think that all men don’t like me, so that I no longer feel equally unpleasant. And now we can argue that Petya has the right to his own choice, but Petya’s choice has nothing to do with other men and with my own attitude towards myself. Most likely, besides Petya, there were men in my life who still chose me and noted me as attractive. This means that only Petya doesn’t like me, but there are those who like me. This means that this belief is irrational and does not correspond to objective reality at all. Jumping to conclusions is a cognitive distortion characterized by “thinking for other people” and predicting situations that have not yet happened, which has nothing to do with logical conclusion and an objective assessment of the situation. For example: I went on a date, I see that my partner is not sufficiently involved in the topic of conversation, is distracted by correspondence on the phone, and clearly expresses concern about something else. I conclude that he is no longer interested in me, he has someone else, I think that he wants to leave me. Now let’s rationalize the situation: does his detachment mean that he is not interested in me? Absolutely not. This has nothing to do with logical inference. He is a living person who can experience different feelings caused by different events. And besides me, there are other areas in his life that may cause him concern. I am not his whole life and not the reason for all his experiences and joys. Jumping to conclusions is one of the most irrational things we do in thinking. It is important to learn to monitor this habit and think critically about these assumptions. And the third cognitive distortion I want to talk about today is personalization. Let me give you an example: I am a terrible teacher because my students do not attend lectures in my subject well. Let’s try to rationalize this belief: “I’m a terrible teacher,” what does a terrible teacher mean? Am I not coming to work? - No; I do not explain the material that is necessary to pass the exam in my lectures - I explain; Have any students or colleagues told me that I am a terrible teacher? - also no. Can students not attend classes for reasons unrelated to my.