by Rocky Garrison, Ph.D.

Thought records (TR) are “perhaps the most well-known tool to facilitate cognitive restructuring…” (Wenzel, 2017, p. 600), and a core component of most of the empirically supported treatments in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT).  Since their introduction by Aaron Beck and his colleagues in 1979, at least 110 TR forms have been identified, each elaborating and adapting it to various disorders and treatment approaches (Waltman, 2019).  The TR presents a guide for conceptualization and intervention (Persons, 2008), defining a line of inquiry to follow along with the client, who is taught to use the TR process on an independent basis.  The primary purposes of TRs are to (1) identify and explore the automatic thoughts associated with a specific event, behaviors, or change in mood, (2) evaluate the evidence for and against the identified thought, and (3) identify a new or alternative thought that is more adaptive.  This is a process akin to Socratic questioning, another CBT tool for cognitive restructuring.  

Despite their wide-spread use in CBT, there is little research on the efficacy of TRs as a standalone treatment or method of cognitive restructuring.  Support for their efficacy is generally inferred from their inclusion in almost all CBT treatments, and therapists are encouraged to adapt and implement them based on the case formulation of each client (Wenzel, 2017).  Two studies compared the therapeutic impact of TRs with behavioral experiments (BE), another core component of many CBT treatments, finding that BEs are slightly more effective in changing beliefs (McManus, Van Doorn, & Yiend, 2011) and BEs are perceived by clients as more powerful than TRs (Bennet-Levy, 2003).

This suggests an Individual Psychology adaptation of the TR, the Private Logic Record (PLR).  In Individual Psychology, each person is seen as creating a unique apperceptive schema of fictions which the person acts “as if” were true as they move through life toward their fictional final goal (FFG) of significance, security, and safety.   Collectively, these fictions and the FFG are the person’s life style or law of movement.  This pattern of movement (i.e., behavior, emotion, and thought) is evident in all behavior, and there are numerous terms in IP to describe various facets of a person’s unique law of movement.   The proposed PLR uses four, Guiding Lines, Private Logic, Immediate Purpose, and Common Sense, to explore how the law of movement is expressed in a specific incident.  

Guiding Lines are like the meridian lines on a map (Griffith & Powers, 2007), orienting the person and useful in charting their course.  These private meanings or convictions include interpretations of the situation and the actions of others in the situation.  Private Logic is “… the fictional line of reasoning proceeding from private meaning…” (Griffith & Powers, 2007, p. 81), often used interchangeably with “private sense,” “private intelligence,” “private world,” “private intelligence map,” “personal intelligence,” and “isolated intelligence” in Adler’s writings (Dreikurs, 1973).   The focus is on the personalized understanding of the convictions and thinking processes used in the situation.  Immediate Purpose is the expression of the FFG in the specific situation, the fictional destination of the movement toward personal significance, security, and safety (Dreikurs, 1950/1974).  Common Sense is on a continuum with private logic at the other end.  All movement follows the logic of the law of movement, following the guiding lines, using the private logic, and ranging from low in Social Interest (private logic) to high in Social Interest (common sense).   In the PLR this inquiry is a modification of the guiding lines, private logics, and immediate purposes that were discovered in the earlier inquiry.  Specific queries for each inquiry are presented in Table 1.  

Table 1: Private Logic Record Instructions

Date/Time:  Be as specific as possible

Situation: What happened?  Who were you with?  Who said what and did what?  Work at having a beginning, a middle and an ending for the incident and seeing your actions as movement.  Do you have any images or memories attached to this situation?  Do you see any pictures or images as you recall this incident?

Guiding Lines: What did you make of the situation?  How did you read it?  Go over each event in the incident and describe your evaluation and your sense of why people did what they did.  What would they have to believe to have their behavior make sense?  Describe any vertical movement by others that you see in the incident.  

Private Logics: What were you thinking as the incident progressed?  What words were in your mind in each event of the incident?  How do you explain your behavior?  How do you make sense of what you did?  What decisions did you make as each event happened?  Take responsibility for any vertical movement you make in this incident.  What were you acting “as if” was true in the incident?  “What would have to be true to make an otherwise particular, peculiar, and socially senseless pattern of behavior, intelligible?” (Griffith & Powers, 2007).  

Immediate Purposes: What did you want from the incident?  How do your actions in this incident enhance your feelings of significance, security, or safety?  What purposes are expressed in your vertical movements?  Where is your line of movement headed?  

Common Sense: What would you have to believe to approach this situation with horizontal movement?   Modify the guiding lines, private logics, and immediate purposes you have discovered to convictions that lead would lead you to be more respectful, egalitarian, and contributing.  Visualize yourself acting as if you believed this.  

References

Beck, A., Rush, A., Shaw, B., & Emery, G.  (1979).  Cognitive therapy of depression.  Guilford.

Bennett-Levy, J. (2003).  Mechanisms of change in cognitive therapy: The case of automatic thought records and behavioural experiments.  Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 31(3), 261-277.

Dreikurs, R.  (1950/1974).  The immediate purpose of children’s misbehavior: Its recognition and correction.  In R. Dreikurs, Child guidance and education (pp. 5-25).  [original work published in 1950]

Dreikurs, R.  (1973).  The private logic.  In H. Mosak (Ed.), Alfred Adler: His influence on psychology today (pp. 19-32).  Noyes Press.

Griffith, J., & Powers, R. (2007).  The lexicon of Adlerian psychology (2nd ed.).  Adlerian Psychology Associates.

McManus, F., Van Doorn, K., & Yiend, J. (2012). Examining the effects of thought records and behavioral experiments in instigating belief change. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 43(1), 540-547.

Persons, J.  (2008).  The case formulation approach to cognitive-behavior therapy.  Guilford.

Shulman, B. (1973).  What is life style?  In B. Shulman, (ed.) Contributions to Individual Psychology. Alfred Adler Institute. 

Waltman, S. H., Frankel, S. A., Hall, B. C., Williston, M. A., & Jager-Hyman, S. (2019). Review and analysis of thought records: Creating a coding system. Current Psychiatry Research and Reviews Formerly: Current Psychiatry Reviews, 15(1), 11-19.

Wenzel, A. (2017). Basic strategies of cognitive behavioral therapy.  Psychiatric Clinics, 40(4), 597-609.