Socratic Questioning

Once mastered, this could be the most powerful tool in your toolbox.

The fact that cognitive behavioral therapy is utilized in cases of severe depression and borderline personality disorder, tells us of its powerfulness. This is a good reason to include Socratic Questioning in your bag of tricks.

Around the same time that Albert Ellis lost interest in psychodynamic therapy, American psychiatrist Aaron Beck (1921) followed a similar path. Beck is considered to be the father of both cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy and is overall seen as the most influential of all cognitive therapists.

Where Ellis could be considered a bit blunt because of his use of humor — which not everyone might be amused by — Beck uses the gentler approach of merely asking questions. These questions, however, are just as leading as Ellis’ disputations. The technique used by Beck is known as Socratic Questioning.

The questions the therapist asks the client are open questions — so not questions to which you can simply answer a “yes” or a “no” — and they are “powerful” questions, on which the client has to ponder a bit before being able to answer. Powerful questions often start with “what”, “who”, “where”, “when”, or “why”. For instance, instead of asking the weaker question, “do you like working in…