ABSTRACT
Another strategy that you can use to reduce the confusion which may arise from the complexity of A’s is to train your clients to identify for themselves the most relevant parts of the A about which they were disturbed. Encourage them to ask themselves ‘What was I most disturbed about in that situation?’, or teach them inference chaining. When you train your clients to identify the element of the A about which they were most disturbed, encourage them to identify their major disturbed emotion. Have them then review the episode in their mind and encourage them to use this feeling to locate the aspect of the situation that triggered their irrational belief. To the same end you can teach them to ask themselves ‘What was the worst thing that happened in this situation that I was disturbed about?’ This is a very different question from ‘What was the worst thing that could have happened in this situation?’ At this point you are more interested in what your clients were actually disturbed about (experiential inferences) than what they could have been disturbed about (theoretical inferences).
