Foundations of Behavioral and CBT Therapy Course

What the module teaches

Module 1 covers the core that every later module in the PsychoPharmRef therapy course builds on. The Learn tab has seven sections:

• Core behavioral principles
• The cognitive model (Beck)
• Functional assessment and case formulation
• Therapeutic alliance and collaborative empiricism
• Outcome measurement, including repeated validated measures such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, session ratings, and Goal Attainment Scaling
• Ethics, consent and cultural humility
• The standard session structure

Key references include Judith Beck's Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond, Cooper, Heron and Heward's Applied Behavior Analysis, and Persons' The Case Formulation Approach to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy.

Interactive worksheets

• Functional Analysis. An ABC data log (antecedent, behavior, consequence) for a target behavior, then a hypothesized function: escape or avoidance, attention or social, access to a tangible or activity, or automatic or sensory.
• Case Formulation. Map a recent example through the cognitive model (situation, automatic thought, emotion and intensity, behavior, consequence), then build a problem list with a hypothesized mechanism and a treatment target for each.
• Session Structure. A standard-session checklist for self-supervision, with an adherence percentage that updates as you check items.
• Measurement. A Goal Attainment Scaling builder and a session tracker for any repeated measure, such as the PHQ-9, GAD-7 or a 0-10 distress rating.
• Socratic Toolkit. A reference set of question types for guided discovery, and a collaborative-empiricism self-check.

Each worksheet copies to dated plain text. A blank, fill-by-hand PDF of the worksheets can be downloaded from the module header.

Who it is for

The module is written for trainees and advanced students starting behavioral and cognitive-behavioral work, and for anyone working through the later disorder-specific modules. It is a teaching module for supervised skill development. The worksheets are practice aids, not validated instruments.