Claude Cognitive Toolkit

Evidence-based CBT and DBT intervention skills for AI assistants. Built for developers who want structured mental health support in their terminal workflow — without leaving the command line.

---

CBT Thought Record Tool

A full 7-step cognitive restructuring workflow based on Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy and David Burns’ Feeling Good methodology.

Steps:

1. Describe the situation
2. Identify automatic thoughts
3. Detect cognitive distortions (Burns’ 10-category taxonomy)
4. Rate emotion intensity (0–100)
5. Generate a balanced alternative thought
6. Re-rate emotion after reframing
7. Export structured markdown with frontmatter

Distortion detection is automatic — the toolkit matches your thought against all 10 Burns categories and flags the most salient ones before asking you to reframe.

---

DBT Skills Training

Skills from Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy adapted for conversational AI delivery.

Opposite Action guides you through identifying the action urge driven by an emotion, then choosing the behaviorally opposite response — evidence-based for breaking avoidance, shame spirals, and anger escalation.

DEAR MAN (Wave 2) includes roleplay: the AI plays the other person so you can rehearse assertive communication before the real conversation.

---

Cognitive Distortion Detection

Automatic detection across all 10 Burns categories:

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking — seeing things in black/white, no middle ground
2. Overgeneralization — one negative event = a never-ending pattern of defeat
3. Mental Filter — dwelling on a single negative detail
4. Disqualifying the Positive — rejecting positive experiences as “not counting”
5. Mind Reading — assuming others’ negative reactions without evidence
6. Fortune Telling — predicting things will turn out badly
7. Magnification / Minimization — catastrophizing or shrinking things inappropriately
8. Emotional Reasoning — “I feel it, therefore it must be true”
9. Should Statements — rigid rules that generate guilt and resentment
10. Labeling and Mislabeling — attaching a global negative label to yourself or others

---

Anxiety Management

The toolkit features configurable pushback — the AI challenges negative thoughts with varying intensity based on your preference and current capacity.

Configurable Pushback