📖 5-minute read
A thought record is the workhorse of CBT. It slows a difficult moment down enough that you can see the thinking underneath, look at the evidence on both sides, and land on something more balanced.
The seven columns: Situation → Automatic Thought → Emotion (0–100%) → Evidence For → Evidence Against → Balanced Thought → Emotion Now (0–100%). Most people find the emotion softens by 20–40% just from doing the record.
Do it in writing, not in your head — the whole point is to externalise what your mind is doing so you can look at it, rather than being inside it.