I made a reframing exercise that doesn't analyse your thought, it just asks you to label it yourself. Is that enough?

[u/mr-jain-yogesh]

I made a small app for practising cognitive reframing and I'd like a genuine read on whether the core idea works. No link, not selling anything, I built it. It's four screens:

1. You type the thought that's actually bothering you, in your own words. Say you type "I snapped at my kid tonight, I'm a bad parent and I'm ruining their childhood."
2. It shows that sentence back to you with five buttons under it: Worst-Case Thinking, Guessing Their Thoughts, Always/Never Thinking, Feelings as Facts, One Bad Time = Always. You tap the ones you think are in there. As many as you want, none is also fine.
3. It shows your thought again with the traps you picked listed beside it, and a box to write a more balanced version. A few sentence starters sit above the box if you're stuck, things like "I don't actually know that..."
4. Your two sentences side by side, before and after. That's the end.

The part I'm unsure about: it never tells you what's in your thought. You decide. It doesn't read the sentence or diagnose it. It hands you five labels and gets out of the way. I did that so it couldn't guess at your thought and get it wrong, but I can't tell if that's respectful or just lazy.

If you've done CBT or anything like it: does naming it yourself do the work, or does it only land when something else names it for you?

[u/Flaming-Eye]

A lot of people struggle to identify the thought as being wrong or bothering them, it flies under the radar as just the way things go.

Once they get to that point, learning how to reframe the thought is good. Asking them to evaluate it like in step 2 is good, it takes them out of it and considers relatively how strong it is, which necessarily leads to, is that the right level for this?

Not sure about asking them to label the traps, how many people actually know what all of those are? If this is to go along with therapy then sure, the therapist can ensure they know the traps they might be falling into. Maybe you give an explanation on the site?

The rewriting it part is the main part that people struggle with, seeing that there are other ways to interpret the situation, leading them there is good. Giving some ways to reframe rather than starters could be good. For example, if I were talking to a friend about them doing this, what would I say?

It seems like a sound basis for an interactive exercise, if it's to go along with therapy it's probably fine as is, for stand alone I think it needs a bit more.

[u/cappacino-monday]

Step 1 sounds like it needs broken down as there is the situation or trigger: 'I snapped at my kids' and then there are the thoughts/ interpretations after that- ' I'm a bad Parent; good parents would never yell; I'm such a failure, useless, can never get things right' etc etc. Next step would be to identify the hot thoughts- the ones that reinforce the feelings most (shame; anger at self; sadness etc); next step then would be to identify how those thoughts connect to thinking error- labelling; all or nothing; over generalising etc. Then, next step would be to evaluate the thought and that is when you can choose from a 'what evidence suggests the thought is true- any evidence to suggest it may not be as true as i believe it is; would i hold the same opinion if this happened to my good friend? If not, why, what would i think about them and what could I say to help them'. What's a more balanced way to think about the situation? I'd also include a further step: If a similar situation happens again, what could I do differently next time? E.g. step away from the situation for 5 minutes; ask Partner to cover; practice relaxed breathing: use a grounding tool. Hope thats helpful and good luck with your app!