Anticipatory Anxiety Automatic Thought Record 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 Anticipatory Anxiety Automatic Thought Record Worksheet?
Anticipatory anxiety refers to one’s fear of uncertainty and unknown outcomes in the future. While a little bit of anticipatory anxiety can benefit in helping one prepare better for what’s to come, too much of it can be debilitating. It can make a person constantly worry about worst case scenarios of how much things might go wrong in the future. An automatic thought record is a CBT technique that can help people with anticipatory anxiety to catch their negative automatic thoughts that fuel their anxiety and work on replacing them with healthier alternatives.
How will the worksheet help?
The worksheet will help clients who are undergoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for excessive anticipatory anxiety to notice and challenge their automatic negative thoughts. It will help them become more observant of the situations that trigger their anxiety, the thoughts and emotions that follow and how they can challenge those thoughts to modify them.
How to use the worksheet?
Instruct the client to use the worksheet when they feel their anxiety getting high. They have to note down the content of their worries, what could have triggered it and the automatic negative thoughts that followed. Then they have to evaluate those thoughts and reexamine their anxiety levels.