COGNITIVE

INTERVENTIONS

Sollano, Kara Melanie C. /

Prepared by: CAS-06-601E
With cognitive
interventions, the therapist
and client are delving into
the content of specific
thoughts to alter the
functional impact of those
thoughts. Cognitions are
frequently altered indirectly
through the other
interpersonal, affective,
and behavioral forms of
intervention.
Detect and Evaluate Automatic
Thoughts

◻ This intervention is a basic and fundamental

cognitive strategy.
◻ The degree of emotion is typically rated on a
subjective scale, such as from 0 to 100, to help
the client have greater discrimination of degrees
of difference, and to identify the more
emotionally provocative automatic thoughts.
▪ Clinical Example
 Guided Discovery
◻ Guided discovery involves
asking a series of
questions in a Socratic
style dialogue, to draw out
intermediate beliefs or
those conditional rules
and assumptions that
arise from and reinforce
distorted core beliefs
about the self, others, and
the future.
 Downward Arrow

◻ This technique
follows
one particular thought
with successive
questions
about
the attached
meaning.
 Generate Options and
Alternatives
◻ The client is
upsetting thoughts
may be related to
situations or
circumstances
that are
true or
unchangeable.
 ▪ Clinical Example

◻ Do nothing. Our friendship has

Debra, room for her to be distracted.
who was ◻ See how things go when we get
upset together next and then decide.
about her
◻ Call her and vent my feelings.
friend’s
distractio ◻ Call her and schedule a time to
n. discuss our needs and feelings
about friendship.
◻ Call her to make some plans, but
don’t specifically bring anything
up, just have a friendly contact.
◻ Write a “Dear Jane” letter to tell
her how angry I am.
◻ Drop her as a friend. Don’t call or
write and refuse to answer her
respondence.
 Scale on a Continuum

◻ The problem at hand often feels like the worst

problem ever because the proximal demands
and the level of arousal activate extreme
appraisals.
Redirect Attention

◻ Tic-Toc is an
acronym for “task-
interfering
cognitions” and
“task-orienting
cognitions”
 Assign a Realistic Probability

◻ Once an idea or a probability is present in our

mind, emotions often follow the possibility,
even if it is extremely remote or unlikely.
☺