Thought Record

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Weighing the evidence

5 minute read

Steps 5 and 6 are the heart of a thought record. You treat the hot thought as a hypothesis, something that might be true, false, or somewhere in between, and look at what supports it and what doesn't. Therapists call this stance collaborative empiricism. You're the investigator, and the thought has to answer to the evidence like any other claim.

Facts and interpretations

The rule for both columns is the same. Evidence means facts, things anyone who was there could confirm. A useful test is whether a camera would have recorded it.

Interpretations and feelings are normal, and they have a place in the record, in steps 2 and 3. In these two columns they're what you're testing, so they can't count as evidence.

Evidence for

Start here, and be fair. It's tempting to rush past this column to get to the part that feels better. Don't. Your feelings made sense for a reason, and writing that reason down honestly does two things. It shows you're not dismissing yourself, and it makes whatever you write in the next column more believable. A record that skips this step often produces a balanced thought that feels like spin.

Evidence against

This is usually the hardest step. A strong feeling narrows attention toward whatever fits it, so the other side is genuinely hard to see in the moment. That's what the questions are for. None of them has a right answer built in. Each one points somewhere you may not have looked yet.

Is it fact or my reading? Would a camera have caught this, or is it how I took it?

What else could explain it? Try to come up with two or three other possibilities, even ones that seem unlikely at first.

What happened before? Has something like this happened before, and how did it actually turn out? Have there been times the thought wasn't true?

What would someone who cares about me point out? People who know you often see what you've left out.

What would I say to a friend? Most of us hold ourselves to a harsher standard than anyone else.

Am I leaving anything out? Especially things that don't fit the thought, or good things I've discounted.

Worst, best, most likely. What's the worst that could realistically happen? The best? What's most likely?

If the worst happened, then what? What could I do, and who could help? This shifts the question from whether something bad will happen to whether you could handle it.

How much will this matter later? In a week, or a year.

These questions come from a tradition therapists call Socratic questioning or guided discovery. Christine Padesky, one of its best-known teachers, argued that good questions help a person discover something new rather than steer them toward the therapist's conclusion. One study found that sessions with more of this kind of questioning were followed by larger drops in depression.

When the evidence supports the thought

Sometimes, looking honestly, the thought holds up. That happens, and it's worth knowing. There's a switch on step 6 for this. When it's on, step 7 changes. Instead of asking for a fairer view, it asks you to say plainly what's true, notice what the hot thought adds that the evidence doesn't back up, and decide what would help. The balanced thoughts article covers this.

References

Helpful links

Educational content, not medical advice or a substitute for professional care. Ready to try one? Fill in a thought record online or print one.