Negative Thoughts – Self-Monitoring Record

A structured tool for identifying and recording negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to build client awareness and support cognitive restructuring.

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Professional version

Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.

Client version

Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.

Editable version (PPT)

An editable Microsoft PowerPoint version of the resource.

Overview

The Negative Thoughts – Self-Monitoring Record is a resource that facilitates the process of self-monitoring - an intervention where clients systematically observe and document their automatic thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and behaviors. This tool aims to enhance awareness, formulation, decentring, and intervention planning within cognitive-behavioral therapy and associated therapies.

Why Use This Resource?

Self-monitoring is a dual-purpose intervention that is used for both assessment and intervention.

Enhances client awareness of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Supports the development of hypotheses and formulations regarding symptom maintenance.
Helps clients step back and decentre from distressing experiences.
Provides a measure of treatment progress.

Key Benefits

Awareness

Improves client insight into the context, occurrence, and content of negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Formulation

Supports case conceptualization and testing hypotheses about client difficulties.

Decentring

Helps clients distancing themselves from distressing experiences.

Adaptability

Can be used throughout therapy.

Who is this for?

Depression

Capturing recurrent negative thoughts related to hopelessness, self-criticism, and self-blame.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Documenting distressing, anxiety-provoking thoughts and images.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD

Monitoring intrusive thoughts and consequent compulsive behaviors.

Integrating it into your practice

Identify

Choose a specific thought, behavior, or situation as the monitoring target.

Prompt

Decide on a cue or prompt for clients to self-monitor.

Situation

Have clients capture situational context.

Thoughts

Record the specific negative thoughts, images, or memories experienced.

Emotions

Describe and rate emotional and physiological reactions.

Responses

Document coping strategies or responses enacted by the client.

Consequences

Explore the outcomes or consequences of client's responses, if needed.

Theoretical Background & Therapist Guidance

Self-monitoring is recognized as both an assessment tool and a therapeutic intervention within cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It involves clients observing and recording their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses in real-time. This intervention seeks to enhance client self-awareness, identify thought patterns, support decentring, and collect information for hypothesis-testing and formulation-building.

Research indicates self-monitoring not only improves clients' self-awareness but can inform case conceptualization and intervention planning (Cohen et al., 2013; Korotitsch & Nelson-Gray, 1999). The Negative Thoughts – Self-Monitoring Record is designed to align with these findings, providing clinicians with a practical, adaptable tool for enhancing therapeutic engagement and treatment outcomes.

What's inside

Columns for recording situational context, negative thoughts, emotional reactions, and coping responses.
An optional extended version with a column for examining consequences of responses.
Comprehensive instructions for effective self-monitoring.
Suggested questions to support the implementation of self-monitoring.

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FAQs

Self-monitoring is a practical intervention where clients systematically record their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to better understand and modify these emotional and psychological patterns.

Begin by explaining its dual role in understanding and modifying negative thought patterns. Start with a single, clear target and practice in-session with the client.

Assess whether the client understands the aims and process of self-monitoring. Consider simplifying targets, providing additional in-session practice, and identifying environmental factors affecting recording.

How This Resource Improves Clinical Outcomes

By incorporating systematic self-monitoring, clients develop:

Enhanced self-awareness and understanding of cognitive patterns.
Insight into situational triggers and maintaining factors of symptoms.
Greater psychological distance from distressing thoughts.

Therapists benefit from:

A useful tool that can be sued throughout treatment.
Deeper understanding of client cognitive and emotional processes outside of therapy sessions.
Opportunities to test hypotheses and gather information for case conceptualization and treatment planning.

Clinicians Who Use This Resource Also Use

Cognitive Distortions – Unhelpful Thinking Styles (Extended)

References And Further Reading

Bornstein, P. H., Hamilton, S. B., & Bornstein, M. T. (1986). Self-monitoring procedures. In A. R. Ciminero, K. S. Calhoun, & H. E. Adams (Eds) Handbook of behavioral assessment (2nd ed). New York: Wiley.
Cohen, J. S., Edmunds, J. M., Brodman, D. M., Benjamin, C. L., & Kendall, P. C. (2013). Using self-monitoring: Implementation of collaborative empiricism in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 20(4), 419-428.
Kennerley, H., Kirk, J., & Westbrook, D. (2017). An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Skills & Applications (3rd ed.). Sage, London.
Korotitsch, W. J., & Nelson-Gray, R. O. (1999). An overview of self-monitoring research in assessment and treatment. Psychological Assessment, 11(4), 415.
Persons, J. B. (2008). The Case Formulation Approach to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. Guildford Press, London.
Proudfoot, J., & Nicholas, J. (2010). Monitoring and evaluation in low intensity CBT interventions. In J. Bennett-Levy et al. (Eds.), Oxford guide to low intensity CBT interventions (Oxford Guides to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) pp. 97-104. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/med:psych/9780199590117.003.0007

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