Attention - Self-Monitoring Record

Self-monitoring is a technique in which clients learn to systematically observe and record specific targets such as their own thoughts, body feelings, emotions, and behaviors. The aim is to improve clients’ awareness of their experiences and the contexts in which they occur, in order to help them gain insight into their symptoms and difficulties. Self-monitoring supports collaboration between the therapist and client, and creates opportunities to formulate and test hypotheses about these difficulties. Self-monitoring is usually introduced early in therapy, and provides an inexpensive and continuous measure of problem symptoms and behaviors throughout treatment. 

Psychology Tools self-monitoring records have been carefully designed to focus on particular targets. In most instances, there are:

• Regular versions of each form which focus on collecting essential data about the target.
• Extended versions of each form, which allow additional data to be collected about the consequences of client behaviors, and which can

“A great way of finding out more about your experiences of these difficult thoughts, feelings, and reactions is to use a Self-Monitoring Record. It’s like a diary that lets you record when a problem occurs, and any important details which could help us understand more about how it works. Would you be willing to go through one with me now?” 

Step 1: Choosing a focus, purpose, and prompt for data collection 

Self-monitoring records are best used to capture information about specific categories of event that are of interest to the client, or related to a presenting problem. The accuracy of self-monitoring decreases when individuals try to monitor for more than one target, so therapist and client should identify a single well-defined target (e.g., “Times when you notice yourself feeling anxious”, “Times when you notice a marked change in what you pay attention to”, “Times when you feel very self-conscious”).

• Bornstein, P.H., Hamilton, S.B. & Bornstein, M.T. (1986) Self-monitoring procedures. In A.R. Ciminero, K.S. Calhoun, & H.E. Adams (Eds) Handbook of behavioral assessment (2nd ed). New York: Wiley.
• Clark, D. M. (2001). A cognitive perspective on social phobia: In W. R. Crozier, L. E. Alden (Eds) International handbook of social anxiety: Concepts, research and interventions relating to the self and shyness. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
• Cohen, J.S., Edmunds, J.M., Brodman, D.M., Benjamin, C.L., Kendall, P.C. (2013), Using self-monitoring: implementation of collaborative empiricism in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 20(4), 419-428.
• Kennerley, H., Kirk, J., & Westbrook, D. (2017) An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Skills & Applications. 3rd Edition. Sage, London.
• Korotitsch, W. J., & Nelson-Gray, R. O. (1999). An overview of self-monitoring research in assessment and treatment. Psychological Assessment, 11(4), 415.
• Persons, J.B. (2008) The Case Formulation Approach to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. Guildford Press, London.
• Proudfoot, J.,