Techniques and Intervention Strategies Flashcards
7 cards from real CBT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Techniques and Intervention Strategies flashcards as text
A therapist asks a client to keep a daily log of automatic thoughts, associated emotions, and situational triggers. This technique is BEST described as:
Answer: Self-monitoring via thought records
Thought records (dysfunctional thought records) are self-monitoring tools that capture automatic thoughts, emotions, and triggers to facilitate cognitive restructuring.
During a session, a therapist says, 'Let's list the evidence that supports your belief that you'll fail, and then the evidence against it.' Which technique is being used?
Answer: Examining the evidence
Examining the evidence involves collaboratively reviewing facts that support and contradict a client's automatic thought to test its validity.
A client with agoraphobia is first asked to imagine crowded places, then visits a quiet store, then a mall at off-peak hours, and finally a busy shopping center. This sequence illustrates:
Answer: Graded exposure
Graded exposure presents feared stimuli in a stepwise hierarchy from least to most anxiety-provoking, allowing habituation at each level.
Which CBT technique specifically targets the tendency to focus exclusively on negative details while ignoring positive information?
Answer: Mental filter challenge
Challenging the mental filter cognitive distortion directs attention to the full picture rather than selectively attending to negatives.
A therapist uses a 'cost-benefit analysis' to help a client evaluate whether holding a particular belief serves them well. This is MOST associated with:
Answer: Rational emotive behavior therapy techniques within CBT
The cost-benefit analysis (also called advantages-disadvantages analysis) originates in REBT and is integrated into CBT to evaluate the utility of a belief or behavior.
In the context of CBT for insomnia (CBT-I), 'stimulus control' instructions would MOST likely include:
Answer: Using the bed only for sleep and sex, not reading or TV
Stimulus control reestablishes the bed as a cue for sleep by restricting activities in bed to sleep and intimacy only.
A client catastrophizes about a presentation, predicting total humiliation. The therapist asks, 'What is the worst that could realistically happen, and could you cope with it?' This is called:
Answer: Decatastrophizing
Decatastrophizing challenges clients to realistically assess the worst-case scenario and their ability to cope, reducing the perceived severity of feared outcomes.