Behavioral Experiments
19 of 19 resources
Assertive Responses
Being able to communicate assertively is an essential skill for developing and maintaining healthy relationships and positive self-esteem. Individuals ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/assertive-responses
Exercises
Attention Training Experiment
Self-focused attention can make people less likely to see their social performance in a positive light, and contributes to the maintenance of social a ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/attention-training-experiment
Exercises
Attention Training Practice Record
When people struggle to control the focus of their attention, they find it much harder to interrupt cycles of worry, rumination, and other forms of se ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/attention-training-practice-record
Exercises
Behavioral Experiment
Behavioral experiments are planned experiential activities to test the validity of a belief. They are one of the most powerful techniques available to ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/behavioral-experiment
Worksheets
Behavioral Experiment (Portrait Format)
Behavioral experiments allow individuals to test the validity of their beliefs and assumptions. They are a core experiential technique for therapeutic ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/behavioral-experiment-portrait-format
Worksheets
Checking Certainty And Doubt
Psychologists have discovered interesting relationships between Checking, Certainty, And Doubt. This information handout contains an exercise helpful ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/checking-certainty-and-doubt
Information handouts
Managing Social Anxiety (Third Edition): Therapist Guide
Managing Social Anxiety – A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach comes in two volumes. This page is for the Therapist Guide. Click on the following ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/managing-social-anxiety-therapist-guide
Treatments That Work®
Managing Social Anxiety (Third Edition): Workbook
Managing Social Anxiety – A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach comes in two volumes. This page is for the Workbook. Click on the following link t ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/managing-social-anxiety-workbook
Treatments That Work®
Mastery Of Your Anxiety And Panic (Fifth Edition): Therapist Guide
Mastery Of Your Anxiety And Panic comes in two volumes. This page is for the Therapist Guide. Click on the following link to access the accompanying C ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/mastery-of-your-anxiety-and-panic-therapist-guide
Treatments That Work®
Mastery Of Your Anxiety And Panic (Fifth Edition): Workbook
Mastery Of Your Anxiety And Panic comes in two volumes. This page is for the Workbook. Click on the following link to access the accompanying Therapis ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/mastery-of-your-anxiety-and-panic-workbook
Treatments That Work®
Modifying Rules And Assumptions
Assumptions are often considered dysfunctional if they are inflexible, rigid, or lead to counterproductive behaviors. Modifying Rules And Assumptions ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/modifying-rules-and-assumptions
Worksheets
Overcoming Eating Disorders (Second Edition): Therapist Guide
Overcoming Eating Disorders comes in two volumes. This page is for the Therapist Guide. Click on the following link to access the Client Workbook.&nbs ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/overcoming-eating-disorders-therapist-guide
Treatments That Work®
Overcoming Your Eating Disorder: Workbook
Overcoming Eating Disorders comes in two volumes. This page is for the Client Workbook. Click on the following link to access the accompanying Therapi ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/overcoming-your-eating-disorder-workbook
Treatments That Work®
Safety Behaviors
Safety behaviors are actions carried out with the intention of preventing a feared catastrophe. In the short-term they often give a sense of relief, b ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/safety-behaviors
Information handouts
Self Practice Record
Out-of-session work (collaboratively generated and negotiated) is an essential component of effective CBT. This Self Practice Record helps clients to ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/self-practice-record
Worksheets
Uncertainty Beliefs – Experiment Record
Situations which are uncertain, novel, or ambiguous trigger a state of uncertainty. Evidence indicates that individuals who are dispositionally high i ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/uncertainty-beliefs-experiment-record
Worksheets
Understanding Fears And Phobias
Our ‘Understanding…’ series is a collection of psychoeducation guides for common mental health conditions. Friendly and explanatory, they are co ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/understanding-fears-and-phobias
Guides
What Are Safety Behaviors?
Safety-seeking behaviors (‘safety behaviors’) are actions that people take in response to a real – or perceived – threat. When a threat is rea ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/what-are-safety-behaviors
Information handouts
Worry Postponement
Worry postponement ("worry time") is often prescribed as an exploratory or standalone intervention relatively early in the treatment of GAD, but ...
https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/worry-postponement
Exercises
Links to external resources
Psychology Tools makes every effort to check external links and review their content. However, we are not responsible for the quality or content of external links and cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time.
Information Handouts
- Unhelpful thoughts: challenging them, and testing them out | CEDAR
- Pooh’s behavioural experiment: practising assertive defense of the self | Christine Padesky | 2012
Video
- Establishing a behavioral experiment with a therapist (part 1) | James Bennett-Levy youtube
- Establishing a behavioral experiment with a therapist (part 2) | James Bennett-Levy youtube
- Establishing a behavioral experiment with a therapist (part 3) | James Bennett-Levy youtube
- Establishing a behavioral experiment with a therapist (part 4) | James Bennett-Levy youtube
- Establishing a behavioral experiment with a therapist (part 5) | James Bennett-Levy youtube
- CBTp behavioral experiment youtube
- Developing a behavioral experiment | CCI youtube
- CBTp in-session behavioral experiment | Psychosis Research Unit youtube
- CBT for social anxiety: hypothesis A vs. B behavioral experiment youtube
Recommended Reading
- Bennett-Levy, J. E., Butler, G. E., Fennell, M. E., Hackman, A. E., Mueller, M. E., & Westbrook, D. E. (2004).Oxford guide to behavioural experiments in cognitive therapy. Oxford University Press.
- Bennett-Levy, J., Westbrook, D., Fennell, M., Cooper, M., Rouf, K., & Hackmann, A. (2004). Behavioural experiments: Historical and conceptual underpinnings.Oxford guide to behavioural experiments in cognitive therapy, 1-20.
- 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.
- Harvey, A. G., & Eidelman, P. (2011). Intervention to reduce unhelpful beliefs about sleep. InBehavioral treatments for sleep disorders(pp. 79-89). Academic Press.
- McMillan, D., & Lee, R. (2010). A systematic review of behavioral experiments vs. exposure alone in the treatment of anxiety disorders: A case of exposure while wearing the emperor’s new clothes?.Clinical psychology review,30(5), 467-478
- Murray, H., & El-Leithy, S. (2021). Behavioural Experiments in Cognitive Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Why, When, and How?.Verhaltenstherapie,31(1), 50-60.
- Palmier‐Claus, J., Wright, K., Mansell, W., Bowe, S., Lobban, F., Tyler, E., … & Jones, S. (2020). A guide to behavioural experiments in bipolar disorder.Clinical psychology & psychotherapy,27(2), 159-167.
- Rouf, K., Fennell, M., Westbrook, D., Cooper, M., & Bennett-Levy, J. (2004). Devising effective behavioural experiments.Oxford guide to behavioural experiments in cognitive therapy, 21-58.