Thought record 
               Use the thought record worksheet to help you take a step back and re-evaluate thoughts that make you 
               feel miserable. 
               One of the fundamental principles of CBT is that how we think affects how we feel and vice versa. When we 
               feel depressed or anxious it is easy for our thinking to be biased towards negative conclusions despite 
               evidence to the contrary. A thought record is a tool to help you pause and take a step back in order to re-
               evaluate the automatic conclusions you come to that can make you feel hopeless, helpless, trapped, and 
               defeated. 
               Choose a recent situation that made you upset or contributed to making you feel bad about yourself or 
               your life. Fill in the thought record using that specific situation following the steps outlined below. 
               1) Situation: record anything relevant about the situation you were in that acted as a trigger for you to feel 
               bad (or worse). Describe the situation as factually and neutrally as you can e.g. "1030am, Saturday 
               morning, seeing my friend cross the road and not stop to talk to me." 
               2) Emotion: write down what emotions you felt at that moment. It's easy to get thoughts and feelings 
               mixed up so remember, feelings are usually most easily described in a single word e.g. sad, nervous, angry, 
               frustrated, ashamed, jealous, glad, surprised, disappointed, miserable etc. 
               3) Thoughts: try to remember the thoughts and images that went through your mind at the time. Try to 
               stick to what that event seemed to mean to you at that moment e.g. "she doesn't want to talk to me, she 
               doesn't think I have anything to say, she must think I'm boring." 
               4) If you notice that you have more than one thought about the situation, try to work out which thought is 
               most upsetting: we call this thought the "hot thought". 
               5) Evidence for: concentrating only on the hot thought, make a list of all the hard facts (not opinions) that 
               make the hot thought seem likely to be true. 
               6) Evidence against: make a list of all the hard facts that you might have been overlooking that contradict 
               the hot thought. For example, ask yourself: 
                   •    whether the hot thought is fair, realistic and logical 
                   •    whether the situation necessarily meant what you thought it meant 
                   •    whether the hot thought is always true, or whether there have been exceptions 
                   •    whether you'd have come to the same conclusion if a friend were describing the same situation as 
                        if it had happened to him or to her. 
               7) Fair and realistic alternative: weigh up the evidence for and against the hot thought impartially, just as a 
               jury has to weigh up the evidence form the prosecution and defence. Write down a fair and realistic 
               conclusion about the situation that takes account of all the evidence. 
               8) Revisit your feelings: having weighed up the evidence and come to a fair and realistic conclusion that 
               takes account of all the evidence, how do you feel now, compared to how you felt at the time or later when 
               you thought about the situation? 
               9) Learning: reflect on the process of re-evaluating your thoughts: what have you learned about how your 
               mood can influence the way you think and vice versa? 
                                                   
                                                                                   © Online CBT Resources: www.onlinecbtresources.co.uk 
                
                                                       
                             Thought record 
        1) Situation/trigger: describe the situation: where was I, who was I with, what day/time was it, what would 
        an independent observer notice happened? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        2) Emotions/feelings: what did I feel at the time; what emotions do I feel as I remember the situation? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        3) Thoughts/images: what was going through my mind then; what do I believe about it now? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        4) Hot thought: which thought carries the most emotional charge? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        5) Evidence for: what makes me think that the hot thought is true; what evidence do I have? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        6) Evidence against: what evidence is there that the hot thought might not be true or isn't the whole story? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        7) Fair and realistic alternative: weighing up all the evidence, what is most likely to be true? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        8) Feelings now: when I think of the situation in this way, how does that make me feel? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        9) Reflections: what have I learned about the link between my mood and my thoughts? 
        Your answer... 
         
         
        
                                      © Online CBT Resources: www.onlinecbtresources.co.uk