Downloads

• Thought record, column version, fillable PDFOne landscape sheet, front and back, US Letter. Steps 1 to 8 as columns, with a worked example and the thinking styles explained on the back. Type into it in any PDF reader. In Spanish.
• Thought record, column version, printable PDFThe same sheet with ruled lines for writing by hand. Print it on both sides. In Spanish.
• Thought record, guided version, fillable PDFTwo pages, US Letter. The nine steps one after another, with a fuller prompt under each. Good while someone is learning the steps. In Spanish.
• Thought record, guided version, printable PDFThe same layout with ruled lines for writing by hand. In Spanish.
• How to do a thought record, client guideTwo pages on the method, with a worked example on the back. Good to hand over with the first worksheet. In Spanish.
• Both versions on a 0 to 10 scaleFor clients who find ten points easier to use. Only the scale and the examples change. Column version: fillable, printable. Guided version: fillable, printable. Column version in Spanish: fillable, printable. Guided version in Spanish: fillable, printable.

The online worksheet is another option for clients who would rather type. It saves in their own browser and prints the same nine sections. The eight worked examples are free to use in session too, and the step by step guide covers each part in more depth.

How the worksheet is laid out

Thought records are a long-established method in CBT, taught and published in many versions. This one follows the same basic sequence most of them share: the situation, feelings, thoughts, the evidence on each side, a more balanced thought, and rating the feelings again.

It adds two steps.

• An explicit step for choosing the hot thought from the list of automatic thoughts, since picking the wrong one is a common reason a record stalls.
• A closing step for what the client noticed and any next step, which gives you something concrete to pick up in session.

Feelings and belief are rated at the start and again at the end, on the classic 0 to 100 scale or on 0 to 10, which some clients find easier. The online worksheet and the app let the person choose, and store the ratings so switching loses nothing.

It comes in two layouts. The column version puts steps 1 to 8 across one landscape sheet, the traditional way, with a worked example, the thinking styles, and guiding questions on the back. The guided version gives each step its own space and a fuller prompt, which helps clients who are new to the method.

The best-known column version is Christine Padesky’s seven-column record in Greenberger and Padesky’s Mind Over Mood. If you’d rather hand out that form, it is free to download for use with clients, in English and Spanish, on the Mind Over Mood worksheets page. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Dr. Padesky or Mind Over Mood.

All prompts and examples were written for this worksheet. The wording is plain on purpose, and each heading has one or two lines of guidance so a client can complete it without the book.

Introducing it in stages

Most clients do better when the record is built up over a few weeks rather than handed over whole. A common sequence:

1. After the cognitive model is familiar, ask for the first three sections only: situation, feelings with ratings, and thoughts. The aim is to notice the link.
2. Add the hot thought and the belief rating.
3. Add the two evidence sections, practicing the guiding questions aloud in session first.
4. Add the balanced thought and the re-ratings.

The app supports the first stage directly with a short capture mode for the first three parts, which the client can finish later.

What to look for when a record comes back

Thoughts in the feelings column

“I feel like nobody cares” is a thought. Ask what emotion came with it. Wheel words such as worthless, rejected, or betrayed are often appraisals too, and the same question helps.

A cool hot thought

A thought rated low paired with a feeling rated high usually means the hot thought is still underneath. A few rounds of “and if that were true, what would it mean?” often find it.

Interpretations as evidence

The evidence sections are where mind reading hides. “Would a camera have caught it?” is a quick test clients can learn.

Affirmation-style balanced thoughts

If the balanced thought is rated at 10 or 20, it may be more hoped for than believed. Look for what from the evidence-for column it leaves out.

Little or no change

Worth exploring rather than correcting. It may be the wrong hot thought, a core belief, a thought that is accurate and calls for problem solving, or knowing without believing, which a behavioral experiment often moves better than more writing.

When a record is the wrong tool

Repeated records about the same fear can turn into reassurance seeking, particularly in OCD and health anxiety. There the useful target is usually the checking and the meaning the client gives the thought, through exposure and response prevention or CBT that drops safety behaviors, not another round of disputing the content.

A few other situations usually call for something else first.

• For generalized worry, beliefs about worrying often matter more than any single worry.
• In severe depression with poor concentration, behavioral activation usually comes first.
• In early grief, sadness that fits the loss is not a target for restructuring.
• With trauma-related beliefs, protocols such as Cognitive Processing Therapy with their own worksheets are a better fit.
• For clients prone to rumination, keep records concrete and tied to a specific moment.

When four or more records from the past two weeks share much the same hot thought, the app points it out and links to a short article on when a record isn’t the right tool. The client-facing article covers the same ground in plain language.

The app, alongside therapy

Clients can flag records to bring to their next session. A session summary PDF, made from Settings, opens with a one or two page overview.

• Flagged records come first, then the rest from a chosen period.
• Each one shows the hot thought, the ratings, the balanced thought, and what the client noticed.
• The overview also lists the feelings and thinking styles that came up most.

Every record in the period then follows in full, laid out like the worksheet. The client chooses where it goes. Nothing is sent automatically.

Not a HIPAA-covered service. There are no accounts and no server of ours. What a client writes stays on their device, or in their own iCloud or Google Drive if they turn sync on.

Anything they share with you becomes part of your records and your obligations. Please don’t ask clients to enter anything they wouldn’t be comfortable keeping on their own phone.

In a group

Thought Record has free group materials for a single session or a four-session series, in English and Spanish.

What members do

• Learn how a situation, a thought, and a feeling connect.
• Work through a made-up situation together.
• Catch a hot thought of their own.

The guides include likely answers for the made-up situation.

The 90-minute session and the series add common thinking styles and a partner exercise with a list of questions. The series also takes each member through a full record of their own over four sessions.

What each guide covers

Timing, words you can use, discussion questions, and notes for inpatient units, intensive outpatient programs, substance use treatment, and outpatient groups. Each member gets a handout of their own.

Downloads

The PDFs are free to print and copy. The same materials are available in Spanish. For a series that carries one value through all four Everyday Insight tools, see the four-session skills group.

The research

Between-session practice is associated with better outcomes in CBT, and the quality of that practice appears to matter at least as much as the amount, in the few studies that measured it. Thought records and behavioral experiments both shift beliefs, with experiments tending to feel more convincing at a gut level.

The research page has the references, and the Learn articles are written for clients. A shorter summary for clients, with the other names a thought record goes by, is on the home page.