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Thought records

6 minute read

A thought record is a structured way to slow down one upsetting moment and look at the thinking inside it. You write down what happened, what you felt, what went through your mind, and then you weigh the thought that hit hardest against the evidence. It's one of the most widely used tools in cognitive behavioral therapy.

Where it came from

The first version appeared in 1979 in Cognitive Therapy of Depression by Aaron Beck and colleagues. It had five columns: the situation, the emotions with a rating of how strong they were, the automatic thoughts with a rating of how much they were believed, a more rational response, and the outcome, where both ratings were checked again. So even the first version asked people to check whether anything had changed.

Later versions added to it. The one most therapists hand out today comes from Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, which split the evidence into two columns, evidence that supports the hot thought and evidence that doesn't, so that the new thought grows out of the facts instead of being produced on demand. The worksheet here follows that approach, with a separate step to pick the hot thought and a step at the end to note what you learned.

The nine steps

Situation. One specific moment. Where you were, who was there, what happened. Stick to what a camera would have caught. 2. Feelings. Name each one, usually in a word, and rate it from 0 to 100. 3. Thoughts and images. Everything that went through your mind, written as statements. 4. Hot thought. The one that best explains the feeling. Rate how much you believe it. 5. Evidence for. Facts that support the hot thought. Be fair to it. 6. Evidence against. Facts that don't support it, or suggest it isn't the whole story. 7. Balanced thought. A thought that takes both lists into account, rated for how much you believe it. 8. Feelings now. The same feelings, rated again. 9. What I learned. What you noticed, and anything you'll do next.

Doing it well

Do it soon. Details fade within hours, especially the exact wording of the thought. If you can't do the whole thing, get the first three parts down and finish the same day.

Pick one moment. "My whole week" is too big. "Tuesday at two, when nobody answered in the group chat" is the right size.

Take the first evidence column seriously. It's tempting to rush past it. Your feelings made sense for a reason, and acknowledging that makes the other column easier to believe.

Keep evidence to facts. "She looked at her phone twice while I was talking" is a fact. "She thinks I'm boring" is a guess, and it belongs in the thoughts step.

Aim for believable, not positive. A balanced thought you rate at 20 isn't doing much yet. One you rate at 60 is.

Expect partial change. A drop of 20 or 30 points in a feeling is a good result. Some feeling usually stays, because the situation still matters.

How often

Therapists often suggest one record a day for a while, or one whenever a strong feeling shows up. The research on CBT homework suggests that how well the practice is done matters at least as much as how much of it gets done. A few careful records beat a stack of rushed ones.

When it isn't working

If records keep leaving you where you started, a few things are worth checking. The hot thought might not be the right one. There may be an older belief underneath. The thought might be accurate, and the situation calls for action instead. Or you might believe the new thought in your head but not in your gut, which is common, and which testing things out in real life often shifts better than writing. These are all good things to bring to a therapist. The article on when a record isn't the right tool covers the rest.

References

Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. Guilford Press.
Greenberger, D., & Padesky, C. A. (2016). Mind over mood: Change how you feel by changing the way you think (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Beck, J. S. (2021). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Kazantzis, N., Whittington, C., Zelencich, L., Kyrios, M., Norton, P. J., & Hofmann, S. G. (2016). Quantity and quality of homework compliance: A meta-analysis of relations with outcome in cognitive behavior therapy. Behavior Therapy, 47(5), 755–772. doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2016.05.002
McManus, F., Van Doorn, K., & Yiend, J. (2012). Examining the effects of thought records and behavioral experiments in instigating belief change. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 43(1), 540–547. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.07.003
Bennett-Levy, J. (2003). Mechanisms of change in cognitive therapy: The case of automatic thought records and behavioural experiments. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 31(3), 261–277. doi.org/10.1017/S1352465803003035

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.