Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Questions to Ask Clients

As therapists, we face many challenges as we go about our days, whether we’re in sessions with clients or completing other tasks. One of the most common hurdles we face is finding ways to help clients feel comfortable enough to open up and talk about their concerns.

If you’re looking for ways to support your clients and better develop rapport, then you’ve come to the right place! In this article, we’ll explore some of the common cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) questions you can ask your clients in your sessions, as well as the power of CBT worksheets in helping you understand how to effectively support them in their endeavors.

Exploring Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: How to Run an Effective Session

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is so effective because it helps clients be their authentic selves in a space where they feel comfortable enough to share their inner thoughts and perspectives. In these sessions, our job as therapists is to guide them to learn how to communicate their feelings while also impacting how they think and behave positively. It is a form of talk therapy widely used for so many mental health concerns today, including ADHD, anxiety, OCD, depression, and trauma. 

The reason that CBT works so well is because of what it provides for our clients. While many of us have people in our lives—friends, partners, family members—who listen to us and give us advice, structured CBT sessions guided by a therapist like us can help them understand themselves and explore their experiences through the use of specific questions. In these meetings, we focus on the client and employ specific techniques to address their concerns.

For the therapy process to work, both the therapist and client have to be engaged and present, have the desire to understand one another, and have the motivation to see progress and change in their lives or a conclusion to the challenges that they’re facing. For many therapists, a CBT worksheet bundle can be a great starting point for formatting your sessions to benefit your client immensely.

What Types of CBT Questions Can You Ask Your Clients?

If you want to improve your rapport and guide your clients to the conclusions and realizations that will help them the most, then you have to ask the right questions. As counselors and therapists, we must know how to guide our clients. There are typically two types of questions that are commonly used, some of which you might already be using without knowing: open-ended and closed-ended.

Defining Open-Ended CBT Questions

Open-ended CBT questions are the ones that clients cannot answer with a simple “Yes” or “No.” These are the inquiries that make them think a little deeper, take their time, and really reflect before they give you their honest response. When you use open-ended questions, you’ll shift who controls the exchange, giving your clients more control over the conversation. Usually, these questions begin with:

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How

You may already have thought of some examples of open-ended CBT questions. Some of the ones you might have used or may use in the future are:

• How are you feeling today?
• What brings you here today?
• What are your expectations from this therapy session?
• Why do you think this happened?
• When did you start feeling these things?

With each of these, you see that there is no real definitive positive or negative answer to any of these. On the other hand, closed-ended CBT questions present the opposite experience: a chance for your client to simply respond with “Yes” or “No.”

Defining Closed-Ended CBT Questions

Unlike open-ended CBT questions, closed-ended questions are those that are easily answered with “Yes” or “No.” Often, these can be clarifying questions, but they do have the tendency to make some clients feel a little interrogated. However, as therapists, it’s up to us to determine when to use these.

Most of the time, they can follow open-ended questions to help make the conversation more engaging. Depending on your client, you could ask specific questions, like some of the questions you can ask in couples therapy, while using CBT worksheets to guide your sessions.

Some examples of these types of closed-ended questions include:

• Are you feeling better today?
• Are you focusing only on the negative things in this?
• Are you assuming that there is no hope for your situation?
• Are you worried that something terrible will happen?
• Does this thought help you to feel better?

Bonus CBT Questions: Defining and Using Socratic Inquiries

Another type of question you might use extensively as a therapist in CBT sessions is Socratic questions. These inquiries help your clients explore ideas, beliefs, or concepts that can help them further understand their underlying assumptions. They are sometimes referred to as the “downward arrow” strategy! Here are some examples:

• Can you explain this to me a bit more?
• Can you give me an example?
• What does that say about you?
• If that were true, what does this mean for your relationship?
• What are you worried that might mean?
• And why does that bother you?

Why CBT Worksheets Work Well for Therapists and Counselors

As counselors and therapists, asking thought-provoking questions in a non-judgmental way is important so you can get to the root of the problem and build rapport with your clients. While the questions we explored above will be instrumental for your sessions, you can also leverage CBT worksheets to truly transform your sessions into guided, impactful opportunities for growth.

Our CBT worksheets can pave the way for greater understanding and comfort for your clients, whether they’re facing issues like procrastination, dysthymia, or even struggling with body dysmorphia. Our worksheets have been developed to assist therapists and counselors like you who want to upgrade your practice and support clients with a wide range of mental concerns. Additionally, with structured tools, you can better format your sessions for maximum impact!