CBT is based on the cognitive model, which hypothesizes that people’s emotions, behaviors, and physiology are influenced by their perception of events (both external, such as failing a test, and internal, such as distressing physical symptoms).

Situation/event
↓
Automatic thoughts
↓
Reaction (emotional, behavioral, physiological)

It’s not a situation in and of itself that determines what people feel and do but rather how individuals construe a situation (Beck, 1964; Ellis, 1962). Imagine, for example, a situation in which several people are reading a basic text on CBT. They have quite different emotional and behavioral responses to the same situation, based on what is going through their minds as they read.