ABSTRACT
Cognitive theory based on an information processing model 'which posits that during psychological distress a person's thinking becomes more rigid and distorted, judgements become overgeneralized and absolute, and person's basic beliefs about the self and the world become fixed'. In an undisturbed frame of mind, a person is likely to check her impressions and appraisals of events in order to obtain clear and accurate information. When emotionally upset, the person will usually distort incoming information by introducing a consistently negative bias into her thinking so that it becomes rigid and overgeneralized. Distorted thinking underlies all psychological disorders. These distortions usually stem from deeper dysfunctional beliefs that are activated during emotional distress, e.g. a person experiencing depression after the breakup of his relationship insists 'author always be alone' because he believes he is unattractive. Teaching clients how to identify and correct these errors or biases in their thinking facilitates the return of information processing that is more evidence-based, flexible and relative.
