How to reflect on your CBT practice

All practitioners develop values and ethics over time that they hold on to. Analyse your development and uncover how your values have impacted your practice with this free tool from Assessment and Case Formulation in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Access your reflective tool

How to structure a CBT course

The ability to structure your sessions is one of your core therapist competencies as a CBT practitioner. Use this template from CBT for Beginners to structure an individual course of CBT for your client.

CBT structure

How to regulate your emotions as a CBT therapist

Cognitive Behavioural therapists need skills to help clients to practise emotional regulation based on emotional intelligence. But what about your own emotions? Read a free chapter from Skills in Cognitive Behavior Therapy to explores the relationship between emotions and delivering therapeutic work.

read chapter: emotions & therapy

How CBT therapists assess their clients

Assessment tools can be used at regular intervals throughout therapy and can help the client and therapist to establish if what they are doing together is working and, if not, to determine what needs to be changed. It can be very helpful for a client to see their progress and to determine what may be hindering their development by using the same assessment tools throughout therapy. Assessment tools include questions or statements that can give the therapist an indication of risk or self-harm.

During assessment, the therapist will determine whether the client is suitable for CBT; there are a number of factors to consider. Safran (1993) identified ten predictors of good therapy outcomes in short-term CBT. A client may have better outcomes if:

• They are able to access and identify their thoughts in sessions
• They have the ability and awareness to differentiate their emotions – the capacity to label them
• They can demonstrate self-efficacy, in that they are able to accept responsibility for change
• They are able to see how CBT may help them
• They are able to form a therapeutic relationship with the therapist
• Their problems are not too acute or chronic
• The client is able to remain focused in therapy and work on their problems
• They have not built up defences to control their anxiety/depression that would be difficult to change in therapy
• They have some optimism about the outcome of therapy