CBT

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Cognitive Therapy:

Emphasis on changing negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs.

Automatic thoughts: Link between thoughts and feelings. Emotion-filled thoughts that might pop up in the mind.

Theoretical Assumptions:

  • People’s internal communication is accessible through introspection.

  • Clients’ beliefs have highly personal meanings.

  • These meanings can be discovered by the client rather than being taught or interpreted by the therapist.

Theory, Goals and Principles:

Theory:

To understand the nature of an emotional episode, it’s essential to focus on the cognitive content of an individual’s reaction to the upsetting event or stream of thoughts

Goals:

To change the way clients thinks by using their automatic thoughts and begin to introduce the idea of schema restructuring.

Principles:

  • Automatic Thoughts: Personalized notions that are triggered by particular stimuli that lead to emotional responses.

  • If thoughts are too negative, it can block us seeing things or doing things that don’t fit what we believe is true.

Cognitive Distortions:

Cognitive distortions are negative or irrational thought patterns that can lead to inaccurate perceptions of reality

Ex:

  • Mind Reading: Assuming you know what others are thinking.

  • Future Predicting: Appraisal of future events

  • Catastrophizing: Predicting the worst possible outcome

  • Labeling: Using global labels to describe yourself or others

  • Black-White Reasoning: Thinking in all or none terms not shades of gray.

  • Regret Orientation: Looking back and not living in the moment of the now

  • Arbitrary Inferences: Drawing conclusions from little or no evidence.

  • Filtering: Noticing only the things that confirm your ideas

  • Personalizing: Thinking that everything is your fault or that others are targeting you specifically

  • Overgeneralizing: Using evidence from a specific context and applying a "rule" to many other contexts

  • Should/Would/Could: Thinking in terms of morals or shoulds, rather than the actual evidence in the situation

Cognitive Triad (Depression):

3 negative schemas:

  1. Negative views about the world:

    • Individual holds negative views about the world and perceives it to be unfair and hostile.

  2. Negative views about oneself:

    • Individual holds negative views regarding their abilities, worth or personality.

  3. Negative views about the future:

    • Individuals anticipate failure in the future, characterised by disappointment.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy:

  1. Mindfulness: Being focused and learning to live in the present.

  2. Regulating emotions: Reduce the intensity of emotional pain.

  3. Distress tolerance: Learn to diffuse distressful or painful situations.

  4. Interpersonal effectiveness: Understand how to set boundaries and express your needs.

Limitations:

  • Extensive training is required to practice CBT.

  • Therapist may misuse power by imposing their ideas of what constitutes “rational” thinking on a client.

    • Therapists must take special care to encourage clients to act rationally within the framework their own value system and cultural context.

  • The strong confrontational style of Ellis’ REBT may overwhelm some clients.

  • Some clinicians think CBT interventions overlook the value of exploring a client’s past experiences