ABSTRACT
This chapter explains with a more elaborate explanation of the importance of a formulation for effective and efficient cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). It discusses the engagement problems in the context of J. O. Prochaska, C. C. Diclemente, and J. C. Norcross's transtheoretical model and W. R. Miller's motivational interviewing. The chapter shows the examples of assessment-focused interviewing strategies. A traditional and "normal" part of CBT assessment is to get an idea of the client's habitual patterns of negative automatic thoughts, his maladaptive beliefs, core beliefs, and rules for living. The assessment consists of three steps, step one to retrieve information from the client, step two for the clinician to make sense of the information and compose a formulation, while step three is the feeding back of the information and formulation to the client. From a CBT perspective, problems can be seen in various ways. A functional analysis aims to uncover the function of the problem behaviour.
