Working with automatic thought is one of the core task in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Beck (2011) lays out four basic steps to work with automatic thoughts of patients, including (1) identifying automatic thoughts, (2) identifying emotions, (3) evaluating automatic thoughts, and (4) responding to automatic thoughts. In many cases, therapists work with patients, particularly patients with mental disorders who have predictably inaccurate automatic thoughts. In those cases, the therapists focus on helping patients assess and respond to dysfunctional automatic thoughts in a healthy way. Automatic thoughts, however, could be either accurate or not. Chapter 12 gives me an important lesson about how to respond to true automatic thoughts.
