CBT Vertical Descent 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 CBT Vertical Descent worksheet?
Vertical Descent is a type of Socratic questioning method used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which helps therapists to identify their client’s core beliefs. The client responds to a series of successive questions that help them go deeper and deeper into the meanings behind their cognitions till they reach a point where their underlying core belief is revealed.
How will the worksheet help?
This worksheet will help clients to delve deeper into the meanings behind their negative thoughts using the vertical descent technique. It will help the client write down their thoughts and their meanings till the underlying core belief can be easily identified.
How to use the worksheet?
Instruct the client to write down the situation and the negative automatic thought that it triggered. Then follow the successive questions to keep exploring the underlying meanings behind those thoughts till they reach a point where the thought can no longer be further explored. This is when they have reached the underlying core belief.