Do your clients ever follow a certain train of thought, without consciously deciding to, that leads them to a sad or upsetting conclusion?

If so, they’re not alone.

It’s human nature to come up with schemas, or thought patterns and assumptions, about how things work. Without them, we would have to approach every problem as a brand-new one, with no preexisting experiences, problem-solving techniques, or lessons learned to draw from.

The issue with these schemas is that they are not always accurate. We do not always come up with the best and most effective methods for solving problems, but these methods can get saved to our subconscious anyway.

Fortunately, there is an effective, evidence-backed process of changing these faulty ways of thinking that can help correct biased, skewed, or just plain inaccurate beliefs we hold. Let’s look a little deeper into cognitive restructuring.

What Is Cognitive Restructuring? 5 Examples

Cognitive restructuring, or cognitive reframing, is a process used in therapy and mental health coaching that helps clients discover, challenge, and modify or replace their negative, irrational thoughts — also called cognitive distortions (Clark, 2013).

It is a staple of cognitive behavioral therapy and a frequently used tool in therapists’ toolboxes because many of our problems are caused by faulty ways of thinking about ourselves and the world around us (Mills et al., 2008).

This process offers a way to help people reduce their stress through cultivating more functional thought habits and building positive self-talk (Mills et al., 2008).

Some of the most common examples of dysfunctional core beliefs and the new, healthier beliefs that may replace them include:

• I don’t deserve love → I deserve love
• I am a bad person → I am a good person
• I am worthless → I am worthwhile
• It’s not OK to show emotions → It’s OK to feel my emotions
• I can’t trust anyone → I can trust some people

Common cognitive distortions

There are so many ways our thinking can play tricks on us that it’s almost surprising that we think clearly most of the time! These tricks are known as cognitive distortions in psychology.

Cognitive distortions are faulty or biased ways of thinking about ourselves and/or our environment (Beck, 1976). They are beliefs and thought patterns that are irrational, false, or inaccurate, and they have the potential to cause serious damage to our sense of self, our confidence, and our ability to succeed.

One of the most common cognitive distortions is overgeneralization, or drawing a broad and generally negative conclusion about oneself or about the world based on a single incident (Beck, 1976).

Another distortion is magnification or minimization, a damaging distortion that affects how we evaluate the things that happen to us (Yurica & DiTomasso, 2005).

You can read more about these and other distorted ways of thinking in our article on common cognitive distortions.

How Does Cognitive Reframing Work?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is built on the idea that the way we think affects the way we feel.

When we think negatively, we often feel negatively and are likely to behave in ways that are not conducive to our health and wellbeing. Cognitive restructuring requires challenging negative thoughts instead of simply accepting them as true or unchangeable.

This method of addressing problems and promoting healing constitutes the bulk of CBT sessions and offers dozens of techniques and exercises that can be applied to nearly any client scenario.

Applied correctly, it can help clients learn to stop automatically trusting their thoughts as representative of reality and begin testing them for accuracy (Mills et al., 2008).

For a thorough explanation of how cognitive restructuring can apply to CBT for anxiety, check out this video.

CHANGE YOUR ANXIOUS THINKING

When, Where & How to Use Reframing

Cognitive reframing is a good choice to use when a client is suffering from the negative outcomes of their behavior but having trouble changing the behavior. This is often due to dysfunctional underlying thoughts and beliefs, which cognitive reframing can be used to identify and address.

Reframing usually begins in a therapist’s office, but it can be implemented anywhere the client has the energy and the will to apply it.

6 Cognitive Restructuring Techniques

Although cognitive distortions are stubborn and surprisingly insidious thought patterns, there are ways to combat them. Cognitive restructuring techniques have had great success in identifying, challenging, and replacing faulty ways of thinking with more accurate, helpful, and positive ways of thinking.

Socratic questioning

Socratic questioning is a very effective cognitive restructuring technique that can help your clients challenge irrational, illogical, or harmful thinking errors.

This technique involves asking the following questions:

• Is this thought realistic?
• Am I basing my thoughts on facts or on feelings?
• What is the evidence for this thought?
• Could I be misinterpreting the evidence?
• Am I viewing the situation as black and white when it’s really more complicated?
• Am I having this thought out of habit, or do facts support it?

Answering and reflecting on these questions can help your clients challenge the beliefs that are causing them harm.

Thought records

Keeping thought records is an excellent way to help your clients become aware of any cognitive distortions that went previously unnoticed or unquestioned, which is the necessary first step to restructuring them (Myles & Shafran, 2015).

There are several different ways to structure a thought record, but the main idea is to note what recurrent thoughts are coming to mind and the situations in which they come up.

Decatastrophizing, or the “what if” technique

This technique is basically asking, “What’s the worst that can happen?” and following a scenario logically through to completion (Dattilio & Freeman, 1992).

Decatastrophizing or asking themselves “what if?” will help your clients determine what is likely to happen, reduce irrational or unreasonable anxiety, and see that even the worst-case scenario is manageable. Use these decatastrophizing worksheets in your sessions.

Guided imagery

Visualization can be an extremely effective method of cognitive restructuring.

There are three main categories of guided imagery that therapists can guide their clients through using cognitive restructuring:

1. Life event visualization

This technique involves having the client identify a specific event or theme that is the focus of the therapy session (Edwards, 1989).

This event could be something recent and particularly salient, like an argument with a loved one, or something from the past that still has a strong impact on the client, like being bullied or a harsh rejection from childhood.

2. Reinstatement of a dream or daytime Image

This imagery technique focuses on a specific image that the client has already had. The image could be one that the client encountered in a dream, daydream, fantasy, or previous guided imagery session.

Wherever it came from, it will hold some inherent meaning for the client and may cause the client to feel anxious, sad, upset, or another emotion intensely.

3. Feeling focusing

Feeling focusing is characterized by the client focusing on a feeling they are experiencing in the session and letting an image arise from the feeling.

An image will usually arise spontaneously, but if not, a technique called multisensory evocation can help clarify it. For this technique, the therapist directs the client through an exploration of the senses to help sharpen the image and identify more detail.

Once the client has an image in mind, the therapist will move on to assessing the meaning that the image holds for the client.

Imagery assessment techniques

There are several assessment techniques therapists may use, including:

1. Prompted soliloquy The therapist directs the client to identify as an object or entity from an image and speak from the position of this object or entity. For example, a client who visualized a lake drying up is directed to be the lake and speak about how it felt to be the lake and what drying up felt like.
2. Interview In this technique the client will once again take on the role of an object or entity from an image, and the therapist will ask specific questions of the client in this role.
3. Prompted dialogue Similar to the previous techniques, this technique involves the client taking on a role and addressing one of the other objects or people in the imagery, such as the trees around the lake.
4. Prompted descriptions This basic technique simply refers to the therapist frequently asking the client what they see and feel.
5. Prompted transformation The therapist may suggest that the client shift or change the image; this can be especially helpful when the current image has reached the end of its usefulness as a discussion piece.

Once the therapist and client work together to identify the meaning attached to the image, the next step will help them challenge, restructure, or replace harmful assumptions and beliefs.

Restructuring techniques

Some of the techniques therapists may use to guide clients through restructuring include summary and reframing, directed dialogue, prompted dialogue, directed transformation, and prompted transformation (Edwards, 1989).

• Summary and reframing Generally the first step in restructuring, this is when the therapist summarizes what they have learned from the client and suggests alternate beliefs or assumptions based on the client’s image.
• Directed dialogue The client must take on the role of one of the objects or people from an image and deliver specified lines in that role. The client may speak to another object or person in the image or simply make statements to no one in particular.
• Prompted dialogue Instead of telling the client exactly what to say in their role from the image, they must come up with their own words to capture a specific idea.
• Directed transformation The therapist directs the client to change the image. The change may be to direct one of the individuals in the image to take a new action or to edit, enhance, or erase an object from the image.
• Prompted transformation Instead of directing the client in exactly how to change the image, the therapist encourages the client to think of a way to change the image that will further a goal or help it become more positive.

A Take-Home Message

This piece provided a quick overview of cognitive restructuring, which is also known as cognitive reframing, and the helpful techniques and tools that you can implement with your clients.

Although it’s natural for us to develop negative, unhelpful beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world, cognitive restructuring offers a way to replace and adapt those beliefs.

The suffering that comes from faulty ways of perceiving and interacting is not inevitable, and it can be avoided.

REFERENCES

• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Handout 27: 5 steps of cognitive restructuring instructions. APA. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/supplemental/Treatment-for-Postdisaster-Distress/Handout-27.pdf
• Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and emotional disorders. International Universities Press.
• Clark, D. A. (2013). Cognitive restructuring. In S. G. Hoffman, D. J. A. Dozois, W. Rief & J. Smits (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of cognitive behavioral therapy (pp. 1–22). John Wiley & Sons.
• Dattilio, F. M., & Freeman, A. (1992). Introduction to cognitive therapy. In A. Freeman & F. M. Dattilio (Eds.), Comprehensive casebook of cognitive therapy (pp. 3–11). Springer.
• Edwards, D. (1989). Cognitive restructuring through guided imagery: Lessons from Gestalt therapy. In A. Freeman, K. M. Simon, L. E. Beutler & H. Akrowitz (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of cognitive therapy (pp. 283–297). Springer.
• Mills, H., Reiss, N., & Dombeck, M. (2008). Cognitive restructuring. Mental health. Retrieved July 8, 2025, from https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/cognitive-restructuring-info/
• Myles, P., & Shafran, R. (2015). The CBT handbook: A comprehensive guide to using cognitive behavioural therapy to overcome depression, anxiety and anger. Robinson.
• Santos, B., Pinho, L., Nogueira, M. J., Pires, R., Sequeira, C., & Montesó-Curto, P. (2024). Cognitive restructuring during depressive symptoms: A scoping review. Healthcare, 12(13), 1292. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12131292
• Stevenson, J., Mattiske, J. K., & Dixon, R. D. V. (2019). The effect of a brief online self-compassion versus cognitive restructuring intervention on trait social anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 123, Article 103492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2019.103492
• Yurica, C. L., & DiTomasso, R. A. (2005). Cognitive distortions. In S. Felgoise, A. M. Nezu, C. M. Nezu & M. A. Reinecke (Eds.), Encyclopedia of cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 117–122). Springer.