Clinician's guide (book)
OnSokol & Fox (2019), The Comprehensive Clinician's Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Willow's technique guidance is grounded in a standard clinician's cognitive behavioral therapy guide — not generic internet advice. The full text is split into searchable passages so Willow can pull the sections that match what you are working on, keeping wording and steps faithful to the same material therapists use in training.
242 passages from the guide indexed and ready for retrieval.
What this layer is
The reference text is the source book indexed as hundreds of short passages. Willow does not memorize the book verbatim or pretend to have read it cover to cover. Instead, when your message matches a technique or concept, the most relevant passages are added to the reply context so answers stay grounded in the guide.
This is separate from the written session protocol and communication style — those are fixed rules loaded every turn. The reference text supplies dynamic, situation-specific excerpts.
About the guide
The Comprehensive Clinician's Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Sokol & Fox, 2019) is a clinician-facing manual covering Beck's cognitive model, session structure, core techniques, worksheets, and worked examples. Willow's protocol and style rules were translated from this material for chat; the indexed passages provide the original technique detail when you need it.
Topics covered in indexed passages
- The cognitive model and doubt labels (core beliefs)
- Session structure — mood check, agenda, homework, feedback
- Thought records and the Go Time framework
- Socratic questioning and guided discovery
- Downward arrow and belief examination
- Common thinking errors and cognitive distortions
- Behavioral activation for depression and low mood
- Anxiety-specific restructuring — probability, catastrophic, and resource errors
- Worry postponement and worry time
- Anger, assertiveness, and should-statement work
- Safety planning and crisis protocols from the clinical literature
- Worksheets, examples, and step-by-step technique instructions
How passages are used in chat
When retrieval runs, matching passages appear in the model's context with chapter and page citations. Willow uses them to stay aligned with the book's steps — for example, the exact sequence of a thought record or the wording of a Socratic question — rather than improvising technique from general knowledge.
If no relevant passage is found, Willow still follows the written protocol and style rules. Retrieval enriches technique guidance; it does not gate whether Willow can respond.
What you will see
Willow may reference techniques by name, walk you through book-aligned steps, and cite where guidance comes from (chapter or page). It will not dump long book excerpts into the chat — the passages work behind the scenes to keep replies accurate.