Behavioral Experiment 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 Behavioral Experiment Worksheet?
Behavioral Experiments are a common technique used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help individuals test their irrational beliefs, assumptions, or predictions The purpose is to help individuals realize the irrationality and inaccuracy of their beliefs and hopefully modify or replace them with healthy alternatives.
How will the worksheet help?
The worksheet will provide a basic template of a behavioral experiment that therapists practicing CBT can use with their clients to help them test the validity of their irrational beliefs. It is a very powerful exercise to help clients challenge their beliefs and helps them realize how wrong they actually are about certain things that they believe to be 100% accurate.
How to use the worksheet?
Instruct the client to first identify the belief or assumption that needs to be tested through the behavioral experiment. Then they have to design an experiment through which they can put their predicted belief or assumption to the test in the real world. Once done, they have to note down their observations and what they have learned from the experience.