Mapping Out Your Experience: Using Formulation to Aid Your Therapeutic Journey

Starting therapy can feel a little like setting out on a journey without a map. You know you want to reach a destination — perhaps less anxiety, improved relationships, or more self-confidence — but you’re not quite sure how to get there.

That’s where formulation comes in.

Formulation is the process of “mapping out” your experiences — past and present — to understand how your difficulties have developed and what might be keeping them going. It’s not about labelling you, but about making sense of your unique story so you and your therapist can work together in a focused, compassionate, and effective way.

🌿 Different Approaches, One Purpose

Therapy comes in many forms, and different models use different tools.

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
  Focuses on the links between thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and physical sensations. CBT is structured, goal-oriented, and often includes tasks to practice between sessions.

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
  Encourages you to accept what you can’t control, unhook from unhelpful thoughts, and commit to actions guided by your values. ACT helps people live more meaningfully, even in the presence of challenges.

• Psychodynamic or person-centred therapies
  May take a less structured approach, exploring your past experiences, relationships, and sense of self over time.

Each model has its own strengths, but all share a core aim: to increase self-understanding and reduce suffering.

🎯 Why Goal-Oriented Approaches Help

Therapies like CBT and ACT are especially known for being goal-focused. Instead of simply talking about what’s difficult, these approaches give you a practical roadmap.

• You and your therapist agree on the destination (your goals).

• Together, you explore the obstacles and patterns that may get in the way.

• Step by step, you build new strategies to help you move forward.

This structure can feel empowering. Rather than therapy being “open-ended,” it becomes a collaborative project with purpose, clarity, and direction.

🧩 The Purpose of Formulation

Early in therapy, your therapist might invite you to:

• Complete a short task between sessions (like writing a diary, filling in a thought record, or reflecting on your values).

• Or work alongside them in-session, “shoulder to shoulder,” piecing things together on paper or a whiteboard.

This process is formulation in action. It often includes questions such as:

• How has your past shaped the way you see yourself and the world?

• What patterns do you notice in your thoughts, feelings, or behaviours?

• Which coping strategies are helpful — and which keep you stuck?

The result is a shared “map” of your experience. It connects the dots between your past, your present difficulties, and your goals for the future.

🔍 Understanding Beliefs & Rules for Living

Formulation also helps uncover the hidden “rules” that shape your choices. These often develop early in life, based on experiences of safety, relationships, or achievement.

• Core beliefs – deep-rooted ideas about yourself, others, or the world.
  “I’m not good enough.”

• Intermediate beliefs (rules for living) – the “if… then…” rules that grow from core beliefs.
  “If I don’t work twice as hard as others, people will see I’m a failure.”

• Safety behaviours / unhelpful coping strategies – the things you do to protect yourself in the short term, but which may reinforce the belief in the long term.
  Avoiding speaking up in meetings to avoid judgment, but never learning people might value your contribution.

By spotting these beliefs and behaviours together, you and your therapist can begin to loosen their grip and test out healthier, more flexible alternatives.

🗺️ Your Roadmap for Change

Think of formulation as your therapy roadmap:

• It shows where you’ve come from.

• It explains why you might feel stuck right now.

• And most importantly, it highlights the paths you and your therapist can explore to help you move towards your values-based goals — the things that matter most to you.

Whether that’s building stronger relationships, feeling calmer under pressure, or living more authentically, formulation ensures that therapy isn’t just about understanding your difficulties, but also about charting a clear way forward.

🔄 Why This Matters

When you see your experience mapped out like this, a few things become clear:

• The past is influencing the present, often in hidden ways.

• The coping strategies (like avoidance) bring short-term relief but actually reinforce the problem.

• Therapy can help you experiment with new behaviours (e.g. practicing presentations in a safe space, slowing down, or noticing unhelpful thoughts without buying into them).

Over time, this process challenges old beliefs and builds new, healthier patterns.

✨ In short: formulation is about connecting the dots between your story and your struggles, so you and your therapist can navigate the journey of change together. With this map in hand, therapy becomes not just a space for reflection, but a shared project of discovery, growth, and direction.