What If
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Professional version
Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Client version
Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
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Introduction & Theoretical Background
"What if...?" questions are a powerful way in which anxious individuals generate or maintain anxious states. Asking oneself a "what if...?" questions invites an individual to worry about low-probability / high-consequence possibilities - to catastrophize. What If...? is a worksheet for identifying and challenging "what if ... ?" cognitions. It contains elements of psychoeducation, threat identification, and cognitive restructuring.
Therapist Guidance
This worksheet presupposes that anxious "what if...?" thinking is a biased form of cognition in which an individual selectively attends to possibilities with negative consequences. This can be framed as a habitual (but inaccurate) form of thinking. Using this worksheet clients are invited to counter their biased thinking by deliberately attending to positive as well as negative consequences of a situation / event. For every negative "what if...?" thought clients should be encouraged to generate three positive "what if...?" alternatives.
References And Further Reading
- Davey, G. C., & Levy, S. (1998). Catastrophic worrying: Personal inadequacy and a perseverative iterative style as features of the catastrophizing process. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107(4), 576.
- Vasey, M. W., & Borkovec, T. D. (1992). A catastrophizing assessment of worrisome thoughts. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 16(5), 505-520.