Homework
Imagine that you receive a poor grade on an homework. What thoughts would automatically enter your head? Would you try to explain the situation through factors such as the teacher's grading style or a minor personal emergency that you were having that week? Would your thoughts be relatively positive and encouraging for next time or negative and self-defeating? Would you have evidence to support your thoughts or a way to prove they were correct?
For this Homework, you are asked to think of your own frustrating fictitious situation and keep a log of the thoughts that might enter your head if the situation were real. In CBT, this log is called an Automatic Thought Record, and it is a very common homework strategy assigned to clients by CBT therapists. This homework reinforces Beck's notion that humans have automatic thoughts that come into their minds and that by tracking them, a client could begin to quantify the number of negative thoughts they have.
To prepare:
1) Review this Learning Resources on automatic thoughts.
2) Review the Automatic Thought Record Template found in the Learning Resources.
3) Consider a fictitious situation in which you feel frustration or disappointment. For example, getting a poor grade, getting a parking ticket, losing a competition, etc.
4) Record the thoughts you have about the situation, pretending that it were real. What are you saying to yourself?
Task:
1) Briefly describe your fictitious situation.
2) Based on the fictitious situation you created, complete the Automatic Thought Record Template.
Format your homework according to the following formatting requirements:
(1) The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
(2) The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
(3) Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.