ABSTRACT
This is a technique used to uncover underlying beliefs such as assumptions, rules and core beliefs. As Beck et al observes: Many patients are unable to articulate these underlying beliefs until they have asked to consider the personal meaning that their more manifest thoughts have for them. Therefore, when patients show strong negative emotions that seem to far more intense than their automatic thoughts alone would cause, therapists can ask patients to probe a bit deeper by asking successive variations of the question "What does that mean to you?" By pursuing the personal meaning of hot thoughts, the therapist helps the client to peel back layers of thought until an underlying belief revealed. The downward arrow locates the cognitive source of this strong emotion. Beck points out that 'asking what a thought means to the patient often elicits an intermediate belief; asking what it means about the patient usually uncovers the core belief'.
