Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based therapy which focuses on modifying an individual’s dysfunctional, unhelpful or distorted perceptions into more balanced and realistic ones. 

This technique is extremely valuable if something, no matter how large or small, has been playing on your mind.

CBT is based on how our thoughts, feelings and behaviour influence, distort and reinforce one another. 

Below is a 3-step guide, based on elements of automatic thought diaries used in CBT, to ease you into audio journaling and challenge your negative and unhelpful thoughts:

1. Situation → What happened? 

2. Thought → Identify one ‘automatic thought’ as a result of what happened?

3. Evaluation → Identify facts which support this thought and facts which do not.

Example:

1. Situation → ‘A group of people started laughing as I walked by, it made me feel really anxious’.

2. Thought → ‘They were laughing at me because there is something wrong with me’.

3. Evaluation → ‘I suppose there isn’t any real evidence to support that they were laughing at me, and it is true that they could have been laughing about anything’.

Once you have evaluated all of your automatic thoughts, you are ready to assess how your emotions have changed and then base your behaviour upon your new, more balanced way of thinking.

Try audio journaling yourself with Journify’s brand new app! Download free for iOS or Android today.

About the author:

Katie Talbot is Journify’s resident psychology guru, mindfulness fan and yoga enthusiast based in Edinburgh, UK. When not exploring her keen interest in mental health, she can be found endangering her physical health on the ski slopes of Canada.