Making the jump between identifying cognitive distortions and actually confronting them and changing them can be a challenge no matter how much background you have. I'm a graduate student studying psychology and counseling, and I get stuck there too. I bet that most people do, no matter what their background is. My T is primarily psychodynamic, but uses whatever seems appropriate (she's tried just about everything on me, trying to find something that works!). Sometimes it's in combination, and sometimes she comments on the blend that she is trying at the moment. Cognitive gets thrown in there often because I do have tons of distortions. Particularly after I told her about doing a presentation for a class on cognitive distortions that was what we did for a while. She was not pleased when I merely labeled my distortions and left it at that, telling me that it was not meant to be some intellectual activity, but an actual therapy to be used to change thoughts and behavior. She expected me to figure out how to put it to actual use, so I had to read more about it.

You might want to study The Feeling Good Handbook. While the book does continually revisit the basic distortions, it also offers many strategies for changing your thoughts. One chapter (Chapter 6, p. 97) is called Ten Ways to Untwist Your Thinking. It goes into the strategies and the situations that each might work best for. There is more information than I can type here right now, so I'll just give you the list:
1. Identify the Distortions
2. Examine the Evidence
3. The Double-Standard Method
4. The Experimental Technique
5. Thinking in Shades of Gray
6. The Survey Method
7. Define Terms
8. The Semantic Method
9. Re-attribution
10. Cost-Benefit Analysis

If one doesn't work, keep trying with another one. You have to actually confront your distortions and explain to yourself not only which distortion it is, but what makes it a distortion and what the truth is in that matter. It takes a lot of practice, and if you have been in the habit of distorting a lot, it is hard to change.

I don't think there is really any such thing as knowing too much psychology for therapy to work (Although sometimes you can do too much intellectualizing and avoid applying what you know to yourself). I'm finding that the more I learn, the better I understand what is supposed to happen, and the better I cooperate and make progress. It's not about tricking you, but rather helping you to understand where you are in life and how to get to where you want to be.

Best of luck with all this,
Rap