Chapter 7: Socratic Method

Question 1

Socratic Question

Answer 1

Using questions to help students reach a conclusion without directly instructing them; one that students have the ability to answer 0- althought he may not realize it yet; intention is to encourage the other person to query their view and to develop new outlooks

Question 2

Aim of Therapist Using Socratic Method

Answer 2

Direct clients’ attention to possibilities that had previously been outside their attention, and there are means other than questioning to achieve this

Question 3

How do you know if you’ve asked a good Socratic Question?

Answer 3

If your client can work out an anser to it and

if the answer reveals new perspectives

Question 4

Socratic Questions in Assessment & Formulation

Answer 4

What did you do when this happened?
What did it mean to you when you thought/did that?
When was the first time that this thought occured to you?
Did you ahve any other feelings?
And when that happens, how do you feel?
What goes through your mind when you feel like that?
What do you tend to do at those times?

Question 5

Socratic Questions for Education

Answer 5

Imagine…what would go through your mind?
How would you feel?
What would you do?
If … were safe, what would go through your mind?
How would you feel?
What would you do?
What does that suggest about the links between thoughts and feelings, or thoughts and actions?
What youjust said, did you mean it? Did it seem true for you?

Question 6

Socratic Questions for Unhelpful Cognitions

Answer 6

Evidence for Questions
Evidence Against Questions
Alternate View Questions
Consequences of Questions

Question 7

Evidence for Questions

Answer 7

In your experience, what fits with this belief, what makes it seem true?
Why might any of us have that thought at some time?

Question 8

Evidence Against Questions

Answer 8

I’m just wondering, do you have any experience of this not being the case?
Is there anything that doesn’t seem to fit with that thought?
How might someone else view the situation?
Is that so all of the time or are there occasions when things are different?

Question 9

Alternate View Questions

Answer 9

Now that you have looked at the bigger picture, how would you view your original concern?
Given what you’ve just described, how likely do you think that it is that the worst will happen?

Question 10

Consequences of Questions

Answer 10

How helpful, or unhelpful, is it to hold this particular belief?
What good, if any, comes of holding this belief?
What is the downside of seeing things this way?
If you see the world in this way, how do you feel, how do others react?

Question 11

Problem Solving & Working Out Solutions and the Socratic Method

Answer 11

So, just what is it that you fear will happen?
How might your friend try to deal with such a dilemma?
Given that you have identified avoidance as an obstacle to gaining confidence, how would you advise a friend to go about dealing with this obstacle?

Question 12

Devising Behavioral Tests and the Socratic Method

Answer 12

What do you think would happen if you held your ground and did not run away?
What would go through your mind?
And if you were able to remain in the situation, what would you go through your mind?
How would you feel? What would this mean to you?
How might we set up a situation where this could happen?
What would make it easier for you to take on the challenge?
How will you gauge your success?
What could go wrong?
What is the worst-case scenario?
How might you prepare yourself/deal with this if it happened?
How might a friend prepare herself/deal with it if it happened?
What would we learn from that?

Question 13

Socratic Method in Supervision?

Answer 13

Enhances learning, fosters collaboration and tests hypotheses

Question 14

Aims of Cognitive Therapy

Answer 14

Changing Minds

Guiding Discovery

Question 15

Changing Minds

Answer 15

Invalidates specific thoughts or meanings

Question 16

Guiding Discovery

Answer 16

Creates alternative mental frameworks; done by adopting a position of curiosity and humility;

Question 17

Downward Arrowing/Vertical Arrow Restructuring

Answer 17

Refers to a type of systematic questioning that aims to help clients elaborate on, or unpack, their experience or NATs and perhaps identify more fundamental meanings underlying an unwanted reaction

Question 18

Questions for Downward Arrow Technique

Answer 18

Just how did you feel at that time?
And what was going through your mind?
Any particular thoughts or pictures?

Question 19

Unpack Personal Relevance of a Thought or Image

Answer 19

I wonder what seems so bad about that?
In your view, what does it mean?
What does that say about you?
What would that mean about your life/future?
What would others think of you?
How would you label that?
Can you describe the worst thing that could happen?
And if that were true - then what?

Question 20

Stages in Socratic Questioning

Answer 20

Concrete Questioning
Emphatic Listening
Summarizing
Synthesizing Questions

Question 21

Concrete Questioning

Answer 21

Structured, information-gathering questions, which begin to inform your hypotheses about the client’s difficulties:
How long have you felt low in your mood?
How often do you …..?

Question 22

Emphatic Listening

Answer 22

Careful, non-judgmental attention both to what the client is saying and how it is said. Client can communicate a great deal through tone of voice or facial expression, which can further impact on your hypotheses and influence subsequent questions

Question 23

Summarizing

Answer 23

Feeding back a synopsis in order to check hypotheses, clarify information or reiterate a point.
You say you have felt ____ for ___ months, but that for several ___ you have felt low.
You seem to be saying you probably ____ every ____, but you are sometimes unsure or not whether or not you have actually _____.

Question 24

Synthesizing/Analyzing Questions

Answer 24

Encourage either the development or expansion of an idea or theme (synthesizing) or the refinement of key information (analyzing)
When we review the past few years, your lowest points seem to be ____ (Synthesizing)
Although there are many circumstances in which you ___, on what evenings are you most likely to?

Question 25

Daily Thought Record (DTR)

Answer 25

Record of key events wich guides the user through the stages of identifying key emotions/cognitions, exploring the validity of the cognitions, and then synthesizing a new perspective

Question 26

Examples of Socratic Questions for Daily Thought Records

Answer 26

What is going through my mind and how much do I believe it?
What supports this?
What contradicts my conclusions?
How might someone else view this situation?
What would I advise someone else?
What evidence is there to support alternatives?
What thinking biases can I identify?
How does my thinking help or hinder me achieving my goals?
What effect would believing an alternative have?
What’s the worst thing that could happen?
How would I cope?
Can the problem situation be changed?
What can I do differently?
How can I check this out?

Question 27

Problems with Socratic Questioning

Answer 27

Client cannot access key thoughts or images in the session
Client invalidates distressing cognitions
Client is avoidant of distressing cognitions
Key cognitions are fleeting in naturre
Crucial meanings are held in a non-verbal form
Client invalidates new perspectives
Therapist questions without direction, or in an unfruitful direction
The therapist lectures
Therapist explores but does not synthesize and draw conclusions
Therapist asks questions only to validate a hypothesis
Therapist limits Socratic enquiry to guided discovery