Imagine that you receive a poor grade on an assignment. What thoughts would automatically enter your head? Would you try to explain the situation through factors such as the teacher’s grading style or a minor personal emergency that you were having that week? Would your thoughts be relatively positive and encouraging for next time or negative and self-defeating? Would you have evidence to support your thoughts or a way to prove they were correct?

For this Assignment, you are asked to think of your own frustrating fictitious situation and keep a log of the thoughts that might enter your head if the situation were real. In CBT, this log is called an Automatic Thought Record, and it is a very common homework strategy assigned to clients by CBT therapists. This assignment reinforces Beck’s notion that humans have automatic thoughts that come into their minds and that by tracking them, a client could begin to quantify the number of negative thoughts they have.

To prepare:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources on automatic thoughts.
• Review the Automatic Thought Record Template found in the Learning Resources.
• Consider a fictitious situation in which you feel frustration or disappointment. For example, getting a poor grade, getting a parking ticket, losing a competition, etc.
• Record the thoughts you have about the situation, pretending that it were real. What are you saying to yourself?

For this Assignment:

• Briefly describe your fictitious situation.
• Based on the fictitious situation you created, complete the Automatic Thought Record Template.

Use your Learning Resources to support your findings. Use proper APA format and citations.

Readings

• Beck, J. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
  • Chapter 9: “Identifying Automatic Thoughts” (pp. 137–157)
• Becker, I. M., & Rosenfeld, J. G. (1976). Rational emotive therapy-a study of initial therapy sessions of Albert Ellis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 32(4), 872–876.
  Note: You will access this article from the Walden Library databases.
• Beck, J. (2011). Annual Reviews Conversations presents a conversation with Aaron T. Beck. Annual Reviews Conversations. Retrieved from http://www.annualreviews.org/userimages/ContentEdi…
  A Conversation with Aaron T. Beck by Beck, J., in Annual Reviews Conversations. Copyright 2011 by Annual Reviews, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Annual Reviews, Inc. via the Copyright Clearance Center.
• DeRubeis, R. J., Webb, C. A., Tang, T. Z., & Beck, A. T. (2010). Cognitive therapy. In K. S. Dobson (Ed.), Handbook of cognitive behavioral therapies (3rd ed.) (pp. 277-316). New York, NY: Guilford Press.