ABSTRACT
Aaron T. Beck has called emotion 'the royal road to cognition', and helping clients to activate and explore their feelings usually reveals important negative automatic thoughts (NATs). Cognitive behaviour therapists borrow techniques from other therapeutic approaches, but these techniques within the framework of the cognitive model of emotional disorders, elicit hot thoughts. Clients keep a mood diary and note changes in mood to catch their NATs. Michael Free likens catching NATs to hunting shy animal: people have to find the automatic thoughts (ATs) habits. People can look for its tracks or droppings. If a client presents with an emotionally impoverished vocabulary, the therapist can provide information to widen his perspective on emotional responses to events. With automatic thoughts people can tell where they've been by the emotion they leave behind. Be on the lookout for those signs and see if people can catch a glimpse of the automatic thoughts.
