ABC Anxiety Worksheet
By
HappierTherapy
Author bio
The Happier Therapy editorial team is made up of Masters and PhD counselling psychologists. Each worksheet is created by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The worksheet then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
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What is the theory behind this ABC Anxiety Worksheet?
The ABC model of Anxiety explains how a triggering event causes Alarm (A) sensations that are emotional or physiological reactions that lead to immediate actions based on Beliefs (B) drawn from prior experiences which lead to specific Coping Strategies (C) that are meant to relieve anxiety. The ABC model helps identify maladaptive beliefs and coping strategies that are worsening anxiety symptoms instead of reducing it.
How will the worksheet help?
The worksheet will help individuals identify their alarm sensations, consequent beliefs and the coping strategies that they use when an anxiety triggering event happens. It can help identify unhealthy thoughts and behavioural patterns that are aggravating their anxiety an d need to be addressed in therapy.
How to use the worksheet?
Instruct the client to use the worksheet whenever they feel anxious. Instruct them to notice and write down the emotional and physiological reactions in column A. The beliefs that follow and the meanings they attach to those reactions are to be written in column B. The actions that they perform to reduce the unpleasant sensations and emotions are to be written in Column C.
