Psychology
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns and beliefs. It is based on the idea that our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviors. By challenging and replacing irrational or harmful thoughts with more realistic and positive ones, cognitive therapy aims to alleviate psychological distress and improve overall well-being.
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10 Key excerpts on "Cognitive Therapy"
eBook - PDFIntroduction to Clinical Psychology
Bridging Science and Practice
- Douglas A. Bernstein, Bethany A. Teachman, Bunmi O. Olatunji, Scott O. Lilienfeld(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Cog- nitive therapists approach these tasks based on their cognitive conceptualization about how a per- son’s thinking patterns influence the client’s func- tioning at different levels. However, cognitive therapists are not trying to eliminate all negative emotions or sad thoughts— after all, upsetting events occur all the time and it would be inane and insulting to suggest that someone who, say, had a death in the family, should not have negative thoughts and feelings at that time. Cognitive therapists focus instead on trying to identify thoughts that are in some way biased or unhelpful (e.g., those that reflect a cog- nitive distortion), which may be making situ- ations harder for clients to manage and which maintain distress. For instance, feeling distress after receiving a poor grade on a test is a natural response; it is when a person thinks to herself “I’m an idiot, I’m never going to graduate” that we see an extra layer of unhelpful thinking that will likely main- tain the distress and interfere with addressing the problem (e.g., studying in a different way for the next test). Similarly, many individuals with anx- iety disorders engage in self-critical thoughts about the experience of anxiety, which add to their distress. So, when feeling anxious about making a presentation in class, instead of recog- nizing that public speaking anxiety is common, a person prone to emotional disorders may think, “I shouldn’t feel this way, I’m so weak.” This example of a secondary appraisal, in which people judge their initial reaction to a situation as being unacceptable (Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, Shorr, & Johnstone, 2001), is yet another kind of thought that can make situations and reactions more dis- tressing and difficult to manage. Cognitive Therapy Methods The unhelpful patterns of thinking described by cognitive theorists become targets for cognitive restructuring, the process of generating more balanced and helpful alternative ways of thinking.
eBook - PDFPsychology and the Challenges of Life
Adjustment and Growth
- Spencer A. Rathus, Jeffrey S. Nevid(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Most behavior therapists today directly incorporate cognitive methods into their treatment approach, practicing a broader form of behavior therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is based on an underlying assumption that cognitions (thoughts and beliefs) influence behavior and that changes in cognitions can lead to desirable behavioral changes. A strong body of evidence supports the effectiveness of a wide range of cognitive behavioral techniques for treating psychological disorders that range from depression to anxiety disorders to sexual dysfunctions, insomnia, and personality disorders, among others (e.g., Gartlehner et al., 2017; Kaczkurkin & Foa, 2015; Renner et al., 2013; Tolin, 2010). Cognitive behavioral therapy even helps people with schizophrenia adhere to medication schedules, reduce the incidence of hallucinations, and boost their number of social contacts (Beck et al., 2017). Let us look at the approaches and methods of two leading cognitive therapists, Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis. Cognitive Therapy: Correcting Errors in Thinking Cognitive Therapy is both a general term, applying to various procedures that foster adjust- ment by means of adopting more adaptive cognitions, and also the name of a specific form of Cognitive Therapy that was developed by the psychiatrist Aaron Beck (Beck et al., 2017; Cognitive Therapy In this specific usage, the name of Aaron Beck’s method of therapy, which aims to show clients how maladaptive cognitions (expectations, attitudes, beliefs, and attributions for problematic events) create or worsen their feelings and their ability to adjust—and then how clients may modify these cognitions to relieve distress and promote adjustive behavior. Review Sentence Completion 10. Behavior therapy applies principles of to help people make desired changes of behavior. 11. In the fear-reduction method of , a person is exposed for prolonged intervals to a fear-evoking but harmless stimulus until the fear is extinguished.
eBook - PDF- Graeme Whitfield, Alan Davidson(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
The vast majority of therapists in this area would happily describe their therapy as 'cognitive behavioural therapy' (CBT) or 'cognitive behavioural psychotherapy' (CBP). Characteristics of all psychotherapies • An intense, emotionally charged, confiding relationship with a helping person. • A rationale which contains an explanation of the patient's distress and of the methods for its release. 3 4 Cognitive behavioural therapy explained • The provision of new information about the nature and origins of the patient's problems and of ways of dealing with them. • The installation of hope in the patient that he can expect help from therapy. • An opportunity for experiences of success during the course of therapy, and a consequent enhancement of the sense of mastery. • The facilitation of emotional arousal in the patient (Frank, 1971). Classification of the psychotherapies The main forms of psychological therapy available include: • cognitive behavioural therapy • psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) psychotherapy • interpersonal therapy (IPT) • counselling • cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) • family therapy • couples therapy • group therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy The Royal College of Psychiatrists defines CBT as: a way of talking about: • how you think about yourself, the world and other people • how what you do affects your thoughts and feelings. CBT can help you to change how you think ('Cognitive') and what you do ('Behaviour'). These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the 'here and now' problems and difficulties. Instead of focusing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now. (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2005, p. 1) Cognitive behavioural therapy, and behavioural therapy before it, has always emphasised the fact that the therapist is active and directive.
- Marie Donaghy, Maggie Nicol, Kate M. Davidson(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
9 Cognitive–behavioural therapy: origins and developments Main characteristics of cognitive–behavioural therapy Cognitive Therapy is a structured, short-term therapy based on a thorough under- standing of the specific disorder being treated and how the disorder has affected the patient. Therapists need to have in-depth knowledge of the disorder being treated and need to have basic skills in interviewing so that important and relevant symp- toms and problems can be elicited from the patients. Therapists should convey to their patients that they have understood their problems and should be able to formulate the patients’ problems within the Cognitive Therapy framework. Time limited The therapy is time limited and comparatively brief. In routine clinical work with a depressed patient, experienced therapists will probably treat an individual for around 4 months during which they may have had around 10 to 16 appointments. Table 1.2 • Examples of thinking errors Table 1.2 Table 1.2 • Type of information processing Example of situation and error negative automatic thought Selective abstraction: Selecting one Situation: Friends coming for a meal. aspect of a situation and interpreting Main course is an hour late as ‘somebody’ the whole situation on the basis of this turned oven off one detail Thought: ‘I am a really disorganized, incompetent person.
eBook - PDF- Santos, Melanie T., Khemlani-Patel, Sony, Neziroglu, Fugen(Authors)
- 1010(Publication Date)
- New Harbinger Publications(Publisher)
In fact, psychological therapy may be more effective than medication (Williams, Hadjistavropoulos, and Sharpe 2006). So, let’s get started learning the steps of Cognitive Therapy. Step 1: Identify Your Internal Dialogue Cognitive Therapy techniques are best learned by using a pen and note- book, so keep both handy as you read this chapter and try the strategies. The first step in Cognitive Therapy is to identify and be aware of your inter- nal dialogue. We all have thoughts, perceptions, opinions, and so on running through our minds all day. Many individuals, however, spend much of the day unaware of these thoughts, and they underestimate the degree to which these thoughts can truly influence daily life. How you perceive events in your day, even minuscule ones, can impact your mood and behavior. The next time you’re in a long line at the grocery Cognitive Therapy 77 store, take special note of the people around you. Perhaps one person sighs impatiently, looking at her watch, and rudely asking the cashier to hurry up, while another person in line calmly browses People magazine! Why is it that every person reacts differently to exactly the same situation? Cognitive Therapy suggests that our inner perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts are to blame. If we can pretend to read minds for a moment, we can make an educated guess that the impatient customer in line was having very different thoughts than the customer reading a magazine. Perhaps the first is saying to herself, I can’t believe this cashier is so incompetent! I’ll be late to work and have a horrible day , while the person reading a magazine may be thinking, This is annoying, but I expect this to happen once in a while, so I might as well read a magazine to pass the time. Cognitive Therapy will not teach you to react to negative events with positive thoughts.
eBook - PDFTheories of Psychotherapy & Counseling
Concepts and Cases
- Richard Sharf(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 406 Chapter 10 that they are evidenced-based psychological treatments. Other disorders dis-cussed here include obsessional thinking and substance abuse. Because the type of cognitive distortions that patients experience can vary within each disorder, and because there are many cognitive techniques, the examples given here are not meant to represent a universal application of Cognitive Therapy to each of these four disorders. In addition, the treatment descriptions highlight only major approaches to Cognitive Therapy with these problems, as a full account goes beyond the scope of this book. Depression: Paul Beck’s initial application of Cognitive Therapy (Beck 1967) was to depression. More writing and research have been devoted to depression in Cognitive Therapy than to any other disorder. Clark, Beck, and Alford (1999) have thoroughly described the rationale for Cognitive Therapy as treatment for depression in Scientific Founda-tions of Cognitive Theory and Therapy of Depression.
eBook - PDFClinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders
A Step-by-Step Treatment Manual
- David H. Barlow(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- The Guilford Press(Publisher)
Patients should be assured that they will be able to think of rational responses more readily with practice. Another problem that derives from the misapplica- tion of Cognitive Therapy techniques occurs when the therapist uses a particular technique inflexibly. It is often necessary for the therapist to try out several be- havioral or cognitive techniques before finding an ap- proach to which a patient responds well. The cognitive therapist must stay with a particular technique for a while to see whether it works, but he/she must also be willing to try an alternative technique when it becomes apparent that the patient is not improving. To give a specific example, behavioral homework assignments are sometimes more helpful with particular patients, even though the therapist has every reason to predict in ad- vance that cognitive assignments will be more effective. In some instances in which it appears that little prog- ress is being made in therapy, it turns out that the ther- apist has selected a tangential problem. The cognitive therapist should be alert to this possibility, especially during the early stages of therapy. When there appears to be little or no significant change in depression level, even when the patient seems to have made considerable progress in a problem area, the therapist should con- sider the possibility that the most distressing problem has not yet been uncovered. A typical example of this kind of difficulty is the patient who presents difficulty at work as the major problem, when it turns out that relationship problems are contributing significantly to the work difficulties. The patient my avoid the real issue because it seems too threatening. Finally, Cognitive Therapy is not for everyone. If the therapist has tried all available approaches to the prob- lem and has consulted with other cognitive therapists, it may be best to refer the patient to another therapist with either the same or a different orientation.
eBook - PDFCounseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice
Skills, Strategies, and Techniques
- John Sommers-Flanagan, Rita Sommers-Flanagan(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
• Researchers in … CBT were professionally threatened if they continued to challenge the behavioral approach. • CBT researchers were challenged as being “oxymoronic” and were labeled as “malcontents.” (Meichenbaum, 2003, p. 127) The pressure from behaviorists didn’t dampen the “cognitivists’” resolve. They pushed back, and in 1977, a new journal, Cognitive Therapy and Research , was founded, with Michael Mahoney as editor. Although there were initial conflicts and a split between staunch behaviorists and cognitivists, the past three decades have brought rapprochement and integra-tion. Now, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between Cognitive Therapy and cognitive behavior therapy. In keeping with this trend, Judith Beck (Kaplan, 2011) announced: [W]e are changing our name from the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy to the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy because people now seem more familiar with the term CBT. (p. 36) What Is CBT? CBT is the popular term for cognitive behavior therapy. The following statements define cognitive behavior therapy : • CBT is brief or time-sensitive. • CBT is structured. • CBT is present oriented. • CBT involves teaching and learning. • CBT seeks to change BOTH dysfunctional thinking and maladaptive behavior (see https://www.beckinstitute .org/get-informed/what-is-cognitive-therapy/). CBT is an integration of cognitive and behavior therapies. In Chapter 7, we focused on behavior therapy. In this chapter, we focus on the cognitive dimension of CBT. We explore the origins and practice of integrating cognition into the behavior therapy process (see Putting It in Practice 8.1 for Judith Beck’s explanation of why she’s a cognitive behavior therapist). 8.1 Why Do I Practice Cognitive Behavior Therapy? The following commentary was written and reproduced with permission by Judith S. Beck , PhD, president of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania.
eBook - PDFCognitive Behavior Therapy
Applying Empirically Supported Techniques in Your Practice
- William T. O'Donohue, Jane E. Fisher, Steven C. Hayes, William T. O'Donohue, Jane E. Fisher, Steven C. Hayes(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
The therapeutic guides the procedure cautiously and caringly, and the client’s beliefs (pertinent to the memory) are elicited. Most im- portantly, the client is asked to talk to himself, as he remembers himself at the critical time in question, in order to give support and offer alter- native, benevolent, compassionate, rational rein- terpretations about his perceived defectiveness. Similar procedures are described in great detail in Foa and Rothbaum (1998), Layden et al. (1993), and Resick and Schnicke (1993). See Table 16.1 for a summary of procedures. Further Reading Emery, G. (2000). Overcoming depression: A cognitive- behavioral protocol for the treatment of depression. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger. Newman, C. F., & Haaga, D. A. F. (1995). Cognitive skills training. In W. O’Donohue & L. Krasner (Eds.), Handbook of Psychological Skills Training (pp. 119–143). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. References Alloy, L. B., Peterson, C., Abramson, L. Y., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1984). Attributional style and the general- ity of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(3), 681–687. American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Wash- ington, DC: Author. Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the emotional dis- orders. New York: International Universities Press. Beck, A. T., Butler, A. C., Brown, G. K., Dahlsgaard, K. K., Newman, C. F., & Beck, J. S. (2001). Dysfunc- tional beliefs discriminate personality disorders. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 39(10), 1213–1225. Beck, A. T., Emery, G., & Greenberg, R. L. (1985). Anxi- ety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective. New York: Basic Books. Beck, A. T., Freeman, A., & Associates. (1990). Cognitive 94 COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY TABLE 16.1 Summary of Procedures 1.
eBook - PDFEmotions and Understanding
Wittgensteinian Perspectives
- Y. Gustafsson, C. Kronqvist, M. McEachrane(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
For example, regardless of the original causes, someone with a substance abuse disorder may need to change beliefs about the problem before developing a motivation to participate in treatment. There is empirical support for each of these assumptions .... (Padesky and Beck 2003, p. 218) Capturing Emotional Thoughts 83 Here I take the first assumption to mean that people have beliefs and ‘automatic thoughts’ (that guide their behavior) and the second assumption to mean that emotional disorders are caused by such ‘cognitions’. This is in line with what Beck elsewhere has described as the core of the cognitive model of emotions and emotional disorders: The thesis that the special meaning of an event determines the emo- tional response forms the core of the cognitive model of emotions and emotional disorders: The meaning is encased in a cognition – a thought or an image. (Beck 1979, p. 52) What I am going to try to demonstrate in the remainder of this article is that this cognitive model, what I take to be the two key assumptions of CBT – again, that emotions are caused by beliefs and that these beliefs are mentally represented as words or images – depend on certain understand- ings (or misunderstandings rather) of the meanings of emotion-reports. What I will try to show is how the theoretical foundation of Cognitive Therapy hinges on an understanding of the meanings and uses of emotion terms, and such terms as ‘thought’ and ‘belief’. This is also to show pre- cisely how philosophy is relevant to CBT: clarifying the meanings of words by reflecting on their use – what, in philosophy, sometimes is referred to as ‘conceptual analysis’ – is needed in order to inquire into its underlying theory (cf. McEachrane 2006, and in press). 1 As we proceed, I hope that the practice and relevance of such an approach will become sufficiently clear.
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