Exercise: Cognitive Restructuring Role Play (Thinking/Feeling/Doing)

Let’s use the Cognitive Triad to practice Cognitive Restructuring.

Remember the Cognitive Triad addresses how a person thinks about a situation, how the person feels
about the situation and how the person acts related to the situation.

Thinking

Feelings Doing

Find a partner to role play practicing cognitive restructuring.

To prepare for the role play: Ask the person to think about a time when with when he/she/they got
stuck in a bad mood.

In the role play:

As the person to describe the time when he/she/they got stuck in a bad mood.

Using the cognitive triad, then ask:

What was happening?

What were you thinking?

How did you feel?

What did you do?

Then ask the person to relook at the situation just described and ask:

If you had different thoughts or took different actions would you have felt differently?

What could you have thought instead?

What other action could you have taken?

How might you have felt instead?

Go through this same series of questions until you have a few examples of different ways the person
could have thought, felt or acted.

If you were using this in work with clients, the next steps would be to have the person reframe the
situation so have a more productive outcome instead of being stuck in a bad mood.

Share your take away learnings from this exercise.