Identifying automatic thoughts worksheet
By
Dr Vlad Burtăverde
Author bio
I am Vlad Burtăverde, PhD, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest. I am a licensed psychotherapist familiar with DBT and CBT. I am an experienced researcher with international visibility, being a PhD in psychometrics and personality psychology. I used many multivariate statistics in the research I did.
Recent work
Burtăverde, V., Jonason, P. K., Giosan, C., & Ene, C. (2021). Why do people watch porn? An evolutionary perspective on the reasons for pornography consumption. Evolutionary Psychology, 19(2), 14747049211028798.https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211028798
“SOME IMPORTANT MOMENTS IN MY CAREER
2013: I started working as a psychologist and became a member of the Romanian College of Psychologists
2013: I founded the consulting agency in psychology and human resources NEO Assessment & Research
2014: I became a teaching assistant and researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest.
2015: I started working as a scientific reviewer for international scientific journals such as the Journal of Risk Research, Personality and Individual Differences, Psychological Reports, Accident Analysis & Prevention.
2015: I became a member of international psychology associations such as: Association for research in Personality, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, European Association of Personality Psychology, World Association for Personality Psychology.
2016: I published the Handbook of Personality Psychology at Trei Publishing House, Bucharest, Romania.
2016: I started collaborating with the research laboratory in Personality Psychology at the University of Groningen under the coordination of Prof. Boele De Raad.
2017: I completed my doctoral studies at the University of Bucharest.
2017: I started working as an associate lecturer at SNSPA, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Psychology.
2018: I became an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest.
2018: I completed my professional training in integrative psychotherapy at the Romanian Institute of Integrative Psychotherapy.
2019: I started working as an associate lecturer at the “Mihai Viteazul” National Academy of Information.
2019: I started the collaboration with the laboratory of Personality, Relationships and Evolutionary Psychology coordinated by Prof. Peter K. Jonason at the University of Padua.
2020: I won through a public competition the postdoctoral research project entitled: Life-history strategies and aggressive driving. An integrative framework for assessing and managing aggressive driving, funded by UEFISCI.
2020: I started working as an associate editor for the scientific journal Frontiers in Psychology – Evolutionary Psychology.
2021: I became an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest.
2021: I started to collaborate with the research laboratory in Evolutionary Psychology at Oakland University, Michigan, coordinated by Prof. Todd. K. Shackelford.
2021: I founded the Association of Personality and Evolutionary Psychology.
2022: I founded Evolutionary-consulting, a consulting agency in the field of human capital
2022: I founded HelloMe, a psychology services hub
2023: I founded the Laboratory of Personality and Evolutionary Psychology, University of Bucharest
2023: I published the first book chapter about the mating strategies of dark personalities in the Oxford of Human Mating, edited by D.M. Buss.
2023: I sustained the Habilitation thesis entitled Individual differences in personality. Predictors of adaptive and maladaptive behavior, which offers the possibility to be an advisor for doctoral students. “
Check my professional profiles at
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vlad-Burtaverde
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sJo62fUAAAAJ&hl=en
https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/1026658/overview
https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/1026658/network
https://www.iea.nl/about/org/people/dr-vlad-burtaverde
https://twitter.com/vladjuve?lang=en
https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.vlad.burtaverde
https://www.facebook.com/psihologvladburtaverde/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vlad-burtaverde-35119351/
https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/Author-Vlad-Burtaverde/168949
https://www.psih.uaic.ro/a/_fis/sc_doc/_cv_refer/cv_burtaverde_v.pdf
What is the theory behind the worksheet?
This worksheet is based on a CBT approach, whose goal is to identify irrational and negative automatic thoughts that lead to a wide range of psychological issues (Beck, 1995).
How will this worksheet help
This worksheet will encourage clients to identify their own automatic thoughts by providing descriptions of how they form and by categorizing them?
How to use the worksheet
It is widely known that people who have certain types of automatic thoughts that distort their view of themselves and the world around them struggle with negative self-talk, which itself is associated with a wide range of clinical problems, such as depression, anxiety, stress disorders, and eating disorders.
These negative automatic thoughts are irrational, not being based on any facts, although people who suffer from psychological problems perceive them as if they were true. In order to overcome your problems, you must first recognize your irrational automatic thoughts and then replace them with rational ones (Sease et al., 2021).
Go through the following list and see if you can think of situations when you have these types of thoughts. Which types of automatic thoughts do you think you experience the most?
Identifying automatic thoughts worksheet
● Disqualifying the positive – You insist that your positive qualities or achievements “don’t really count”.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Mind reading – You assume that people perceive you in a negative light when there is no real evidence for this.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Fortune telling – You are sure that things will turn out bad, based on your instinct.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Using “should” statements – You criticize yourself or others by using words such as “should”/”shouldn’t”, “must” and “oughts”.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Labeling – You see your shortcomings as your identity, so instead of saying “I made a mistake”, you tell yourself “I am a loser, a fool” etc.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Catastrophic thinking – You imagine the worst possible thing could happen in a given situation even though there is no real evidence that this might happen.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Emotional Reasoning – You make judgements based on your emotions rather than evidence. For example, you might think someone is disappointed in you although there is no evidence for this.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
● Magnification and Minimization – You blow negative possibilities out of proportion and you minimize the importance of positive interactions or events.
Example: ______________________________________________________________
You can download this worksheet here.
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References
1.-
Beck, J. S. (1995). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond. New York: Guilford press.
2.-
Sease, T. B., Perkins, D. R., Sandoz, E. K., & Sudduth, H. (2021). Automatic thoughts: Understanding the precursors of self-concealment within the psychological flexibility framework. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 22, 68–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2021.09.008
