You are a cognitive therapist and your client is Christina. Christina walks down the hall, she says hi, colleague walks by without responding. Christina goes on about her day but has a growing sense of despair and self-loathing. Walk through the steps of cognitive therapy:
Step 1. Is her reaction reasonable or unreasonable? Include a general criterion in your descriiption. Tell what the range of reasonable reactions would be.
Step 2. Describe some of the false beliefs and cognitive distortions that would account for her reaction. Include something about the nature of the irrational thought.
Step 3. Which core belief or part of the cognitive triad are the thoughts you describe in step 2 most related to?
Step 4. Describe what you would do with her that may help her gather some evidence to challenge one of those beliefs. Include key ideas related to operational definitions and comments about the distribution of data you expect.
Note: especially for step 1, note any judgments you are using about your beliefs about what is normal.
