Responsibility Pie Chart
A worksheet for re-examining an inflated sense of personal responsibility for a feared or past event by listing every factor that contributed and dividing a pie chart between them, leaving the client's own share to be assigned last.
About this resource
Inflated responsibility is central to Salkovskis's cognitive model of obsessive-compulsive disorder: intrusive thoughts become obsessions when the person believes they are responsible for preventing harm and that failing to act would be as bad as causing it. Similar over-assignment of responsibility maintains guilt after trauma ('I should have stopped it'), shame, and some forms of depression and health anxiety. The responsibility pie chart, described in the OCD literature by van Oppen and Arntz and widely used since, is a cognitive restructuring method that makes the distortion visible.
The method works by ordering. The client first rates how responsible they feel for the outcome, usually a very high figure. They then list every other person, circumstance, chance factor and system that contributed, allocate a slice of the pie to each, and only then assign their own share from what is left. Almost always the remaining share is far smaller than the initial rating, and the gap between the two figures becomes a discussion point about how responsibility has been estimated.
The professional version includes guidance on selecting a suitable event, on handling clients who insist that any contribution at all makes them fully responsible, and on when the technique is not appropriate, for example when the client genuinely did cause harm and the work is about self-forgiveness rather than reappraisal.
How to use it
- Choose an event where the client's sense of responsibility seems inflated: a feared outcome in OCD, an unwanted event they blame themselves for, or a hypothetical worst case. Get an initial rating of felt responsibility (0-100%) before anything else.
- Brainstorm contributing factors together and be generous. Include other people's choices, chance, timing, the environment, institutions, information the client did not have, and the person's own state at the time. Keep the client's own contribution off the list until the end.
- Draw the pie and allocate slices to every other factor first. Only when the rest of the pie is filled does the client assign their own slice from what remains. Compare the size of that slice with the initial rating.
- Discuss the difference. Ask what the client makes of it, and whether their usual way of estimating responsibility starts from 100% and works down. Note that being one contributor among many is not the same as being the cause.
- Follow up with a behavioural experiment where appropriate, for example dropping a checking ritual once the client sees that the outcome does not rest on them alone.
- Do not use the technique to argue a client out of genuine responsibility. Where real harm was done, acknowledge it, and shift to work on remorse, repair and self-compassion instead.
References
- Salkovskis, P. M. (1985). Obsessional-compulsive problems: A cognitive-behavioural analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23(5), 571-583.
- van Oppen, P., & Arntz, A. (1994). Cognitive therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 32(1), 79-87.
- Greenberger, D., & Padesky, C. A. (2015). Mind Over Mood (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
