Cognitive-behavioral approaches (CBT) represent a broad family of psychological models focused on the interaction between thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Originating from the work of Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, CBT emphasizes the role of cognitive processes in shaping emotional responses and behavioral patterns.
Rather than a single theory, CBT includes multiple related approaches that differ in focus, ranging from cognitive distortions and schemas to metacognition, acceptance, and mindfulness. Assessment within CBT typically targets beliefs, thought patterns, behavioral tendencies, and regulatory processes that contribute to psychological functioning.
Early CBT models focus on maladaptive thoughts and beliefs that influence emotional responses.
The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ, ATQ-R) measures the frequency of negative automatic thoughts.
The Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS) assesses rigid and maladaptive beliefs associated with depression and emotional vulnerability, including excessive needs for approval, perfectionistic standards, dependency, etc.
The Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (CEQ) assesses the tendency to make systematic cognitive distortions, such as catastrophizing, overgeneralization, personalization, and selective abstraction when interpreting everyday situations.
The Personality Belief Questionnaire (PBQ) assesses dysfunctional core beliefs associated with personality pathology.
The Illusory Beliefs Inventory (IBI) assesses distorted or unrealistic beliefs about the self and the world.
The Looming Maladaptive Style Questionnaire (LMSQ-R) assesses a cognitive bias involving the perception of threat as rapidly approaching and intensifying.
The Relationship Belief Inventory (RBI) assesses dysfunctional or unrealistic beliefs about romantic relationships, such as disagreement being destructive, partners being unable to change, or sexual perfectionism.
The Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest) assesses the frequency and intensity of cognitive distortions, including all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, emotional reasoning, overgeneralization, and mind reading.
○ The Mistake-Maker's Quiz assesses common cognitive errors and maladaptive thinking patterns associated with everyday decision-making and emotional difficulties.
The Cognitive Distortions Scale (CDS) assess common irrational, dysfunctional, or distorted thinking patterns. © proprietary
The Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) assesses irrational beliefs associated with REBT, including approval seeking, perfectionism, emotional irresponsibility, catastrophizing, and dependency.
The Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI) assesses rational and irrational attitudes related to emotional adjustment, self-evaluation, expectations, and maladaptive thinking patterns.
The Survey of Personal Beliefs (SPB) assesses rational and irrational beliefs derived from REBT, focusing on demandingness, awfulizing, low frustration tolerance, and self-depreciation.
The General Attitude and Belief Scale (GABS, SGABS) assesses rational and irrational beliefs, including demandingness, self-downing, need for approval, need for comfort, and other core constructs of REBT.
The Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (ABS-2-AV) reflects Ellis's rational-emotive approach, assessing irrational beliefs related to demands, catastrophizing, and low frustration tolerance.
The Irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (iPBI) assesses irrational beliefs related to performance situations, including demandingness, awfulizing, low frustration tolerance, and self-depreciation in contexts such as sport, work, and achievement.
The Frustration Discomfort Scale (FDS) assesses irrational beliefs related to low frustration tolerance, entitlement, emotional intolerance, and demands for comfort. It is closely associated with REBT and complements broader measures of irrational beliefs.
Schema models extend classical CBT by focusing on deep, enduring cognitive structures formed in early life.
The Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-R) assesses maladaptive schemas such as abandonment, mistrust, and emotional deprivation.
The Schema Mode Inventory (SMI) evaluates momentary schema-driven states (modes), including vulnerable, angry, or detached modes.
The Young Parenting Inventory (YPI) assesses perceived parental influences related to schema development. © proprietary
The Maladaptive Schema Scale (MSS) assesses dysfunctional schema patterns described by Jeffrey Young (YSQ) with additional schemas.
The Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ) assesses early adaptive schemas, or positive schemas, within the schema therapy framework. It was developed to complement the YSQ by measuring adaptive beliefs and relational expectations.
The Schema Mode Inventory for Eating Disorders (SMI-ED) assesses schema modes specifically relevant to eating disorders. It adapts the broader schema therapy framework to disordered eating.
Schema-based approaches link cognitive patterns with developmental and relational experiences.
Some CBT approaches focus not only on emotion regulation strategies, but also on beliefs about emotions themselves – including whether emotions are acceptable, controllable, dangerous, shameful, or meaningful.
The Leahy Emotional Schema Scale (LESS II, LESS) assesses beliefs about emotional experience and regulation.
The Relationship Emotional Schema Scale (RESS) applies these concepts to interpersonal contexts.
These measures extend CBT models by examining how people interpret emotions, not only how they regulate them.
CBT-related approaches often focus on how people respond to distress through cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, and behavioral strategies.
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) assesses strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and suppression.
The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) evaluates multiple cognitive strategies used in response to negative events.
The Comprehensive Coping Inventory (CCI-55) provides a broad assessment of coping strategies, linking cognitive and behavioral regulation processes.
Metacognitive and thought-focused approaches examine how individuals relate to their own thoughts – including beliefs about thinking, attempts to control or suppress thoughts, cognitive avoidance, worry, and fusion with mental content.
The Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30) assesses beliefs about thinking, worry, threat monitoring, and cognitive control.
The Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) assesses strategies used to manage intrusive thoughts, including distraction, punishment, worry, social control, and reappraisal.
The White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI) measures the tendency to suppress thoughts, a process often associated with paradoxical effects – increased frequency of the very thoughts one attempts to avoid.
The Cognitive Avoidance Questionnaire (CAQ) evaluates strategies used to avoid or mentally disengage from distressing thoughts, images, and worries.
⇒ More detailed measures assessing attentional control, thought control, metacognition, cognitive avoidance, cognitive fusion, and related self-regulatory processes are covered in Control & Avoidance.
Repetitive thinking is a core mechanism in many CBT models, particularly in depression and anxiety.
The Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS) assesses the tendency to engage in repetitive, passive focus on distress.
The Ruminative Thought Style Questionnaire (RTSQ) measures a general tendency toward persistent, repetitive thinking across contexts.
The Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) assesses repetitive negative thinking as a transdiagnostic process, including intrusive, persistent, and difficult-to-control thoughts that may occur across anxiety, depression, stress, and related conditions.
The Anger Rumination Scale (ARS) assesses the tendency to repeatedly think about anger-inducing events, past provocations, and retaliatory themes.
Behavioral components of CBT focus on learning processes, reinforcement, and avoidance.
The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS) assesses activation and avoidance patterns in depression.
The Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale (CBAS) provides a multidimensional assessment of avoidance, including behavioral and cognitive forms in both social and non-social contexts.
The Safety Behaviors Assessment Form (SBAF) assesses the use of safety behaviors, which are central maintaining factors in anxiety disorders and a key target of cognitive-behavioral interventions.
These measures provide a more detailed view of avoidance processes beyond general behavioral activation.
Distress tolerance refers to the perceived ability to withstand negative emotional states without engaging in avoidance or maladaptive regulation strategies.
The Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) assesses perceived ability to withstand and accept emotional distress, including appraisal of distress, absorption by distress, and regulation efforts.
Acceptance-based approaches focus on psychological flexibility and the ability to engage in meaningful action despite difficult internal experiences.
The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) assesses experiential avoidance and psychological inflexibility.
The Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ-7) assesses the extent to which individuals are entangled with their thoughts.
The Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI) assesses psychological flexibility and inflexibility across multiple ACT-related processes, including values, committed action, present-moment awareness, acceptance, defusion, and self-as-context.
The Comprehensive Assessment of ACT Processes (CompACT) assesses psychological flexibility through core ACT processes, including openness to experience, behavioral awareness, and valued action.
⇒ More detailed ACT-related measures of experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, valued action, committed action, and psychological flexibility are covered in Control & Avoidance.
Mindfulness-based approaches emphasize present-moment awareness and non-judgmental observation of internal states.
The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) assesses general mindfulness in daily life.
The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) assess multiple dimensions of mindfulness.
The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2) evaluates awareness of bodily states.
⇒ A fuller overview of mindfulness, state mindfulness, equanimity, and related instruments is provided in Mindfulness & Acceptance.
Compassion-focused and mindfulness-informed CBT approaches examine how individuals relate to themselves and others in situations of distress, shame, or self-criticism.
The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) reflect related constructs of non-judgmental self-attitude.
The Fears of Compassion Scale (FCS) assesses resistance to receiving compassion from others, expressing compassion toward others, or directing compassion toward oneself.
CBT has been extensively applied to specific disorders, with tailored assessment tools.
For obsessive-compulsive disorder:
The Obsessive Belief Questionnaire (OBQ) assesses maladaptive beliefs related to responsibility, threat, and control.
The Interpretation of Intrusions Inventory (III) assesses how individuals interpret unwanted intrusive thoughts, including beliefs about their importance, danger, and personal meaning.
The Responsibility Assumptions Scale (RAS) and Responsibility Interpretations Questionnaire (RIQ) assess inflated responsibility beliefs often linked to anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
The Thought-Action Fusion Scale (TAFS-R) assesses the tendency to equate thoughts with actions or consequences, such as believing that having a thought is morally equivalent to acting on it or increases the likelihood of the feared event.
Depression-related cognitive vulnerability:
The Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) assesses negative expectations about the future, a central cognitive factor in depression and suicide-risk research. © proprietary
The Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ-SF) assesses negative cognitive style, including tendencies to explain negative events through stable and global causes, expect severe consequences, and draw negative conclusions about the self.
The Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale (SAS) assesses two personality-related vulnerability patterns associated with depression: sociotropy, involving excessive dependence on interpersonal approval and closeness, and autonomy, involving strong concerns with independence, control, and achievement.
For anxiety disorders:
The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3, ASI) assesses fear of anxiety-related sensations based on beliefs that such sensations may have harmful physical, psychological, or social consequences.
The Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS) assesses difficulty tolerating ambiguous or unpredictable situations and is central to cognitive-behavioral models of generalized anxiety and worry.
The Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ) assesses perceived control over anxiety-related events and internal reactions, reflecting a key cognitive factor in anxiety maintenance.
The Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire (ACQ) assesses catastrophic thoughts associated with panic and agoraphobia, especially interpretations of bodily sensations and loss of control.
⇒ Anxiety-related cognitive vulnerability measures include anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, perceived control over anxiety, catastrophic agoraphobic cognitions, fear of bodily sensations are covered in the Anxiety domain.
Pain and somatic models:
The Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) assesses rumination, magnification, and helplessness in response to pain, reflecting a key cognitive process in chronic pain.
The Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ) assesses the degree to which individuals accept pain and continue engaging in meaningful activities despite discomfort.
The Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) assesses beliefs that physical activity or work may worsen pain or cause harm, reflecting a central process in fear-avoidance models of chronic pain.
The Psychological Inflexibility in Pain Scale (PIPS) assesses psychological inflexibility in chronic pain, including pain avoidance and cognitive fusion with pain-related thoughts.
Trauma-related cognitions:
The Posttraumatic Maladaptive Beliefs Scale (PMBS) assesses trauma-related beliefs about threat, self-worth, judgment, and trust in others, capturing cognitive patterns that may contribute to post-traumatic distress.
For sleep disorders:
The Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale (DBAS) assesses maladaptive beliefs related to sleep and insomnia, illustrating domain-specific cognitive models.
The Glasgow Content of Thoughts Inventory (GCTI) assesses pre-sleep cognitive activity, such as rumination and worry.
The Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale (PSAS) assesses cognitive and somatic arousal before sleep, including racing thoughts, worry, muscle tension, and physiological activation.
For eating disorders:
The Thoughts and Behaviours Questionnaire (TBQ) assesses eating-disorder-related thoughts and behaviors, providing a cognitive-behavioral view of maintaining processes in disordered eating.
The Appearance Schema Inventory (ASI-R) assesses the extent to which appearance is central to self-evaluation and guides information processing, making it relevant to cognitive models of body image disturbance.
The Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (BI-AAQ) assesses body image flexibility, or the ability to experience body-related thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions with openness while continuing to act in accordance with personal values.
These tools operationalize disorder-specific cognitive mechanisms within a broader CBT framework.
Cognitive-behavioral assessment focuses on identifying patterns of thought, belief, and behavior that contribute to psychological functioning.
Across different approaches, CBT distinguishes between multiple levels of processing: automatic thoughts, underlying beliefs, schemas, metacognitions, and behavioral patterns.
Rather than focusing solely on symptoms, CBT-based measures aim to identify mechanisms that maintain or exacerbate distress, providing targets for intervention.
Cognitive-behavioral approaches complement other domains such as personality, self-regulation, and clinical assessment by offering a structured framework for understanding how cognition and behavior interact across contexts.