| Course | NU 672 Counseling and Psychotherapy |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 3 |
| Paper type | Annotated session transcript |
| Length | About 1,060 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MSN Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU 672 Unit 3
Introducing Interoceptive Exposure in Session 5: A Fourteen-Turn Transcript With Annotations on What Each Therapist Line Was For
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NU 672: Counseling and Psychotherapy
Instructor Name
February 4, 2026
Introducing Interoceptive Exposure in Session 5: A Fourteen-Turn Transcript With Annotations on What Each Therapist Line Was For
Context
Ms. J., a composite woman of 29, is in the fifth session of cognitive behavioral therapy for panic disorder with highway and crowd avoidance. Sessions 1 to 4 covered education about the panic cycle, monitoring of attacks, and identifying her catastrophic interpretation that a racing heart means a heart attack. Session 5 introduces interoceptive exposure, following a standard treatment manual for panic (Craske & Barlow, 2007): deliberately producing the bodily sensations she fears so that she can learn they are not dangerous. The excerpt begins about 15 minutes into the session. Turns are numbered; T is the therapist, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and P is the patient.
The Excerpt
1 T: "Last week you said the scariest part of an attack is when your heart starts pounding. What do you think would happen if we made your heart pound on purpose, here, today?"
2 P: "Honestly? I'd probably freak out. Why would I want to do that?"
3 T: "Fair question. Right now your body has learned that a pounding heart means danger. Every time you avoid the feeling, you don't get to learn otherwise. If we bring it on in a safe place, and it passes on its own, your body gets new information."
4 P: "But what if it doesn't pass? What if this is the one time it's actually my heart?"
5 T: "You've had two full cardiac workups in the emergency department. What did they find?"
6 P: "Nothing. They said my heart's fine. But, I don't know... my sister just got engaged, and she's moving to Denver after the wedding, and I keep thinking about how far away that is."
7 T: "That sounds like a big change. We can come back to it, it sounds important. Would it be all right to try one short exercise first, and then talk about your sister?"
8 P: "I guess. What is it?"
9 T: "You'll run in place for one minute. Before we start, rate your anxiety from zero to 100, and guess how bad the sensations will get."
10 P: "Anxiety's about 40 right now. I'd guess the sensations will be like 80, and I'll have to stop."
11 T: "Okay. Let's see what happens. I'll time it, and I'll do it with you." [Both run in place for 60 seconds.]
12 P: "Okay... my heart's going crazy. That was, like, a 70. But I didn't stop."
13 T: "You didn't stop. What's happening to your heart now, 30 seconds later?"
14 P: "It's slowing down. Huh. It went down by itself."
Annotations
Turn 1: a question rather than an instruction, inviting her to predict. Cognitive behavioral approach, guided discovery. It surfaced her fear openly, turn 2, instead of her complying silently and dropping out later.
Turn 3: a brief rationale grounded in her own experience of avoidance. Exposure works best when the patient understands its purpose; the current account holds that exposure builds new learning that competes with the old fear association (Craske et al., 2014). She responded by voicing her core catastrophic belief, turn 4, which is useful material.
Turn 5: a Socratic question pointing to evidence she already has, rather than reassurance. Reassurance would have served the same function as her emergency department visits, a safety behavior. She acknowledged the evidence, then changed the subject, turn 6.
Turn 7: the therapist noticed the shift to her sister and made a choice: acknowledge it, name it as important, promise to return, and ask permission to continue the exercise. The alternative, following the new topic immediately, would have allowed the change of subject to function as avoidance of the exposure. Following it later keeps both the exercise and a possibly meaningful theme; her first attack occurred the month her sister's engagement was announced.
Turns 9 and 10: anxiety and prediction ratings before exposure. Asking for a specific prediction, sensations at 80 and having to stop, sets up a test she can check afterward. This follows the inhibitory learning emphasis on violating expectations rather than simply waiting for anxiety to fall (Craske et al., 2014).
Turn 11: modeling, doing the exercise alongside her, reduced her sense of being tested and signaled that the sensations are safe.
Turns 13 and 14: attention directed to what happened after the exercise. She noticed that her heart slowed on its own, a small piece of evidence against her belief that a pounding heart escalates into catastrophe (Clark, 1986).
The Approach Behind the Excerpt, in Summary
Every therapist line in the excerpt belongs to cognitive behavioral therapy for panic, but the lines use three different tools within it: guided discovery, in turns 1 and 5; exposure with prediction and review, in turns 9 to 14; and a deliberate choice about when to follow the patient's material, in turn 7. Reading the excerpt this way shows that a single approach is carried out through many small decisions, each of which could have gone another way. A therapist who answered her question in turn 4 with reassurance, or who followed the sister topic immediately in turn 7, would have been using the same approach in name but not in effect.
What Did Not Go Well
Two lines could have been better. Turn 3 was longer and more explanatory than needed; a shorter rationale might have kept her attention on the coming exercise. And in turn 11, running with her may have partly functioned as a safety signal, the therapist's presence reassuring her, so the next exercise will be done by her alone while the therapist times it, and she will repeat it at home without anyone present.
What Happened Next
After two more rounds of running in place and one of breathing through a narrow straw, her peak rating fell to 50, and she said, "It's uncomfortable, not dangerous." The session then returned to her sister, as promised. She described feeling "left behind" and ashamed of not being happier for her sister. That theme was noted for the treatment plan, since separation-related feelings may be relevant to when her attacks occur, and it was agreed to track attack timing against contact with her sister over the next month. Homework was interoceptive exercises daily, with ratings, and no lorazepam in the hour afterward.
References
Clark, D. M. (1986). A cognitive approach to panic. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24(4), 461-470. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(86)90011-2
Craske, M. G., & Barlow, D. H. (2007). Mastery of your anxiety and panic: Therapist guide (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zbozinek, T., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2014.04.006
What the NU 672 Unit 3 instructions ask for
Unit 3 asks you to analyze a therapy session excerpt, usually by transcribing and annotating it. Expect to give context, present the excerpt, annotate each therapist turn with its purpose and technique, summarize the approach, identify what could have been done better and describe what followed. Many versions ask you to name interventions formally. Check whether your section allows a session from your placement, with consent and de-identification, or requires a composite. Ten to twenty turns is a common length. Annotations should explain intent, not only label technique. Honest self-critique is expected, because graders look for awareness of moments that could have gone differently and what you would change. Mark each turn by number so the annotations can point to it.
How this NU 672 Unit 3 example is built
The paper opens with context: the patient, the session number and the goal of introducing interoceptive exposure. The excerpt is numbered by turn, so annotations can refer to it precisely. Each annotation names the technique and explains what the line was meant to do, such as surfacing a prediction before testing it. The summary section shows how the turns fit together into a coherent CBT approach. The section on what did not go well is specific, identifying a turn that explained too much and a missed chance to ask about safety behaviors. The final section reports what happened in the rest of the session, which shows the technique working. Each claim about technique cites the CBT literature.
Where the points sit in the NU 672 Unit 3 rubric
Herzing's rubric for a transcript analysis usually covers context, the quality and length of the excerpt, annotations, identification of the approach, self-critique and writing. Annotations decide most of the grade, and the top band requires each therapist turn explained by purpose as well as named by technique. Context points reward enough background to understand the session. Excerpt criteria look for a meaningful segment of appropriate length. Approach identification earns credit when the turns are tied to a named model. Self-critique is scored on specific, honest reflection. Confidentiality must be protected. Clark's cognitive model and Craske and Barlow's treatment manual belong in the APA 7 references.
NU 672 Unit 3 help before you submit
Transcript analyses in Unit 3 commonly lose credit when annotations only label technique, such as reflection or open question, without explaining intent. Another frequent problem is an excerpt with little therapist activity, which leaves nothing to analyze. Students often skip self-critique or offer only praise. Context is thin. The approach is not named or does not match the lines. Patient identifiers appear in the transcript. The aftermath is missing, so the reader does not know whether the technique worked. Finally, choose an excerpt where something happens, because graders reward analysis of a turning point, such as introducing exposure, more than a routine check-in. An excerpt that runs past twenty turns usually dilutes the analysis, while one under eight rarely shows a full technique.
Get a NU 672 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 3 instructions and the rubric from your NU 672 classroom, and name the approach the transcript should demonstrate. We write a custom example with a composite excerpt that sounds spoken, turn-numbered annotation, alternatives set where they belong and a closing read of the pattern. First custom sample free, returned inside 24 to 48 hours.
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- NU 672 Unit 7: Treatment review and revision brief
- NU 672 Unit 8: Therapy episode portfolio
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NU 672 Unit 3 questions, answered
Can I transcribe a session from my placement?
No. Recordings and notes from a supervised encounter belong to the setting and to the person who sat in the room, and consent for a course file is rarely part of what was agreed. Write a composite excerpt instead and label it as constructed. It also lets you build the exact moments the annotation needs, which a real recording almost never provides on schedule.
How long should the excerpt run?
Long enough to hold a shift in the conversation, which usually means ten to fifteen exchanges rather than a full hour. A short excerpt with dense annotation shows more command than a long one skimmed. Where the instructions set a length, follow it and choose a segment containing a difficulty rather than the opening pleasantries, since pleasantries annotate poorly.
Do I have to name the interventions formally?
Use the vocabulary of the approach you named, since that is how a reader checks the labeling. Reflection, summary, open question and confrontation mean specific things inside a tradition, and using them loosely is visible. Where your course supplies a list of techniques, use its terms exactly, because the person grading is matching your labels against that list.
Where can I find a free NU 672 Unit 3 sample paper?
This page shows the whole NU 672 Unit 3 interoceptive exposure transcript for free, fourteen turns annotated with self-critique. A transcript analysis for a different session or approach can be written on request.
What is interoceptive exposure in CBT for panic?
It deliberately brings on feared body sensations, such as a racing heart from running in place, so the patient learns they are not dangerous. This sample introduces it in session 5 and records her fear rating falling to 50.