Assignment task:
Self-monitoring is one of the most common methods used in cognitive-behavior therapy, both to gather information initially and to use throughout treatment. Just about anything can be monitored: moods, thoughts, behaviors, symptoms, etc. We can make monitoring forms to serve whatever purpose fits with what we're doing. Often we use daily mood monitoring, to get a picture of how someone's week went (without the bias that comes with asking someone in session to think back on the week). We might ask people to monitor times they have increases in anxiety or sadness or anger or binge-eating or substance use or whatever else, and to write down when those times are and what was happening then and what they were thinking - this can show patterns of when things occur, or can show the kinds of triggers for them, or the consequences of them. We can ask people to monitor things like their activity levels and daily moods, or levels of stress and of physical symptoms, to see connections between those things. We can ask people to monitor any number of other things that might be of interest.