CBT Problem Solving Worksheet for Therapists

Authored by Andrew Evans, clinical psychologist. He writes about worksheets and admin offload: what belongs on a page, what belongs in the note, and what should stay in the room.

Dana has twelve minutes left. Marcus has already named the landlord, the leak, the ignored emails, and the story that he is “bad at adulting.” She almost reaches for a thought record. He can already say the thought. What he cannot do is pick one next step and try it before Thursday.

A CBT problem solving worksheet is the record for that hour. You define one problem in concrete terms, generate options without ranking them, weigh those options, choose one, plan the first action, and review what happened. The page is assigned paper. If you wanted a thought record, you would already be in the wrong file.

Use it in CBT with adults who have a bounded, solvable situation and a pattern of rushing, freezing, or handing the choice to someone else. Do not send it out as unsupervised self-use.

Educational content for licensed therapists, not clinical, legal, or emergency advice. Worksheet selection sits inside formulation, consent, and risk review. These sheets do not replace supervision, diagnosis, or a safety plan.

What this sheet is and is not

The parent CBT worksheets pack already covers thought records, distortions, behavioral experiments, and review. This page fills one gap the pack leaves open: a structured problem-solving record.

This sheet is	This sheet is not
One bounded problem in behavioral terms	A seven-column CBT thought record
Generate, then weigh, then choose	A prediction test or behavioral experiment
A first action with day, time, and an if-then	A week of mastery activities
A next-session review of what was tried	Stop-Think-Act, impulse mapping, or a classroom chart
Paper under a CBT formulation	A crisis plan, safety plan, or school file

The American Psychological Association dictionary describes problem-solving therapy as an evidence-based cognitive behavior intervention that improves coping with stressful life experiences by building problem-solving skills, including problem orientation, definition in concrete terms, generation of possible solutions, decision making, and solution implementation with evaluation of the outcome (APA Dictionary of Psychology). This page does not teach the full therapy. It hands you a record that follows those moves for one assigned problem.

When the assignment fits

Use a CBT problem solving worksheet when three things are true at once.

1. The situation is bounded enough to write in one sentence with who, when, and where.
2. The client can take at least one action this week without needing another person to change first.
3. The stuck point is choosing and trying, not catching a hot thought.

Marcus’s landlord leak fits. “I am a failure” does not. “People will think I am incompetent” belongs on a thought record. “If I send a two-sentence email, the landlord will ignore it, and that will prove I should not try” is a prediction you can test with a behavioral experiment. Do not stretch this worksheet to cover those jobs.

APA’s Problem-Solving Therapy video materials distinguish a constructive style (identify why the situation is a problem, generate alternatives, run a cost-benefit analysis, implement, monitor, evaluate) from two dysfunctional styles: impulsivity/carelessness and avoidance (APA, Problem-Solving Therapy). The sheet is there to slow the first style and interrupt the second. If the client is already generating options in session and ranking them out loud, you may only need the plan and review rows.

Skip or pause when:

• acute risk, intoxication, or dissociation is in the room
• the problem is coercive control, ongoing abuse, or a system the client cannot move
• the page would be used as evidence in a custody, HR, or school-discipline file
• the client wants the worksheet to prove they are “finally responsible”
• the indicated tool is a thought record, a behavioral experiment, or a safety plan

The record you assign

Keep the CBT problem solving worksheet on one page. Six rows. No extra columns for mood, evidence, or SUDS. Those belong on other sheets.

Do not add an emotion-intensity column. That quietly turns the page into a thought record. Do not add a “prediction / actual outcome” pair. That quietly turns it into an experiment. If you need those, assign those sheets instead.

How to walk it in session

Start by shrinking the problem. “Adulting” is not a problem you can plan. “Email the landlord about the leak in 3B before Friday at noon” is.

Then generate options with ranking banned. In a trial of problem-solving therapy for older adults with depression and executive dysfunction, therapists using a Nezu-based protocol were instructed to make sure participants generated at least five different solutions, and to review pros and cons of each option even when one solution already looked obvious (Gustavson et al., 2016, PMC5730069). You do not need that protocol to use the rule. You need the rule so the sheet does not collapse into the first idea the client already had in the waiting room.

Stay on generate until the list includes:

• the obvious option
• a smaller version of the obvious option
• do nothing yet
• ask a specific person for help
• one option that would have felt slightly embarrassing to say out loud

Only then weigh. Keep the weigh columns practical: likely gain this week, likely cost this week, effort in hours or minutes. Values language is fine as one line (“this keeps me in the apartment”). Do not open a values-clarification session on this page.

Choose one option for this week. Write what you are not choosing, or the client will try to run two plans and complete neither.

Plan the first action as if Thursday is a bad day. If the plan requires a quiet house, a full night of sleep, and a kind landlord, it will not survive contact with the week.

A worked example

Notice what the example does not do. It does not rate the thought “I am bad at adulting.” It does not predict that the landlord will shame him. It does not schedule a week of mastery activities. Those are other worksheets. This page only has to produce one tried action and one review.

Between sessions and the next-hour review

Assign one problem on the CBT problem solving worksheet. If you send two, you will get none.

Write the dose on the sheet: complete define through plan before leaving the room when you can. Between sessions, the client only runs the plan row and brings back whatever happened. A blank review line is data. Mixed work is data. A perfectly filled page with no action is also data. It usually means the plan was still too large, or the problem was never theirs to solve.

Reopen with the review row, not with “did you do your homework.” Ask what was tried, what got in the way, and whether the problem definition still holds. If the email went out and nothing changed, you may keep the same problem and change the option. If the email never left drafts, shrink the first action. If the session turns into a debate about the landlord’s character, you have left this sheet. Park that and return to the plan, or switch tools.

The pack’s last page is a next-session review with chart stems. Use it so the worksheet does not get pasted into the note.

What goes in the note

Do not dump the grid into the chart. Capture the clinical signal:

• problem defined in one behavioral sentence
• number of options generated (and whether ranking started too early)
• option chosen and the first action
• what returned: tried, partial, blank, or avoided
• next step, or the reason you switched tools

A sufficient line: “Assigned CBT problem solving worksheet for landlord leak in 3B. Generated six options in session; chose a two-sentence email with photo for Thursday 12:40. Reviewed that this is not a thought-record target. Plan if no reply by Monday: office-hours call.”

That shows modality fit, a specific intervention, and continuity. It does not store the client’s option list in a place that is easier to subpoena than it is to use.

Where Emosapien fits

The clinical work is the definition, the banned ranking, and the review. The admin work is remembering that a sheet went home and turning the return into a line in the note. Emosapien can hold the assignment, collect a short return (tried / partial / blank), and draft a stem you still have to edit. It does not choose the option and it does not decide that a blank page is resistance.

If you want that loop connected to the next appointment, start for free and keep the worksheet inside the session where it belongs.

Related worksheets

Use the therapy worksheets guide when you are still choosing a form by clinical task. Stay on this CBT problem solving worksheet when the task is already a structured problem-solving record.

References

• American Psychological Association. (2023). problem-solving therapy (PST). APA Dictionary of Psychology.
• Nezu, A. M., & Nezu, C. M. (2008). Problem-Solving Therapy. APA Psychotherapy Video Series.
• Gustavson, K. A., Alexopoulos, G. S., Niu, G. C., McCulloch, C., Meade, T., & Arean, P. A. (2016). Problem-solving therapy reduces suicidal ideation in depressed older adults with executive dysfunction. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 24(1), 11–13.