CBT Techniques and Intervention Strategies 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A therapist asks a client to keep a daily log of automatic thoughts, associated emotions, and situational triggers. This technique is BEST described as:
- Thought stopping
- Self-monitoring via thought records (Correct answer)
- Graded task assignment
- Behavioral activation scheduling
Correct 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.
Question 2: 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?
- Decatastrophizing
- Examining the evidence (Correct answer)
- Systematic desensitization
- Behavioral experiment
Correct answer: Examining the evidence
Examining the evidence involves collaboratively reviewing facts that support and contradict a client's automatic thought to test its validity.
Question 3: 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:
- Flooding
- Graded exposure (Correct answer)
- Response prevention
- Implosive therapy
Correct answer: Graded exposure
Graded exposure presents feared stimuli in a stepwise hierarchy from least to most anxiety-provoking, allowing habituation at each level.
Question 4: Which CBT technique specifically targets the tendency to focus exclusively on negative details while ignoring positive information?
- Decatastrophizing
- Reattribution
- Mental filter challenge (Correct answer)
- Pie chart technique
Correct answer: Mental filter challenge
Challenging the mental filter cognitive distortion directs attention to the full picture rather than selectively attending to negatives.
Question 5: 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:
- Rational emotive behavior therapy techniques within CBT (Correct answer)
- Prolonged exposure protocol
- Motivational enhancement therapy
- Schema-focused body scan
Correct 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.
Question 6: In the context of CBT for insomnia (CBT-I), 'stimulus control' instructions would MOST likely include:
- Taking a warm bath 30 minutes before bed
- Using the bed only for sleep and sex, not reading or TV (Correct answer)
- Practicing progressive muscle relaxation in bed
- Increasing total sleep opportunity to reduce anxiety
Correct 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.
Question 7: 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:
- Probability overestimation correction
- Decatastrophizing (Correct answer)
- Vertical arrow technique
- Cognitive defusion
Correct answer: Decatastrophizing
Decatastrophizing challenges clients to realistically assess the worst-case scenario and their ability to cope, reducing the perceived severity of feared outcomes.
CBT Techniques and Intervention Strategies 2
A therapist asks a client to keep a daily log of automatic thoughts, associated emotions, and situational triggers.
This technique is BEST described as: