Under the section ‘Track’, you will find the button ‘Thought Records’. Tap on this. Then tap the plus button (+) to create a Thought Record. There are 3 steps involved to completing a Thought Record. After each step, you can choose to continue filling out or to stop and save it there.
Step 1:
Fill in the five headings shown below. The first three are mandatory, the last two are optional. The more you fill in, the more insight it will provide you with.
Event: Describe what happened, the activity and/or the thoughts. Keep it factual; where were you, with whom, what happened?
Feeling: 5 basic emotions are shown. If you click on one, you can use the slider to indicate how intense the emotion was on a scale from 0 to 100%. You don’t have to click on all the emotions, just pick the ones that apply to you. The question ‘What did I feel?’ can help you fill them out.
Thoughts: Describe the automatic thoughts that preceded the feeling. These questions might help you fill the record out: What was I thinking? What was going through my mind? What did I say to myself? What did I think of it?
Behaviour: Describe what you did here: What did I do? How did I react?
Consequence: Describe what happened next: What effect did this have? What was the result of this behaviour?
Click ‘Next’ at the bottom of the screen to complete step 1. You can now choose to proceed to step 2 by pressing ‘Save and go to step 2’, or to continue later by tapping ‘Save Thought Record’.
Step 2:
Step 2 consists of two parts:
- In the first part of step 2, you select your most important thought. This is the thought that most strongly evokes a negative feeling, also known as the ‘most important automatic negative thought’. Choose from the thoughts you entered in step 1, which are also listed here as a reminder. Then indicate how credible that thought is. Thus, how strongly do you believe that thought on a scale of 1-100%? Click ‘Next’ to go to the second section. If you click on ‘Back’, you will go back to Step 1.
- In the second part, you will take a closer look at your thought and challenge it to see if it is realistic. You will do this based on the seven questions that you will see here. You must answer at least three of the seven questions. Questions 1a and 1b count as one completed question and are compulsory. Click ‘Next’ at the bottom to complete step 2.
You can now choose to proceed to step 3 by clicking ‘Save and go to step 3’ or leave it at this by clicking ‘Save Thought Record’, which allows you to finish your Thought Record later.
Step 3:
Step 3 also consists of several parts:
- After challenging your most important thought, you will formulate a more realistic alternative thought. An alternative thought is more neutral or positive than your original thought and can help you to face similar situations because it evokes fewer negative feelings. Write it down here and then indicate how credible this thought is on a scale of 1-100%.
- Click ‘Next’ to proceed to the second section. In this section, you will look back at your old thoughts and indicate, on a scale of 1-100%, how credible your old thought is to you now.
- Click ‘Next’ to continue to the results of your first thought.
- Click on ‘Next’ to see the result of your alternative thought.
- Click on ‘Next’ to complete step 3. You have now completed the Thought Record!