Paste your essay in here…Cognitive Behavioral Therapy first emerged around the 1960s by a psychiatrist named Aaron Beck. As common as this therapy is, it hasn’t been around vastly as much as the other therapies, but regardless has impacted a lot of individuals lives. Beck created this therapy after having many patients with negative internal dialogues. He believes these negative ideations stem from thinking patterns set up in childhood that become automatic and fixed. With these negative ideations often came negatively impacted emotions. He called this “automatic thoughts.” Originally, this theory was strictly named cognitive therapy because its main focus was the patients thought processes but soon it adapted from that. Aaron Beck's extreme objective was to enable individuals to end up mindful of when they make negative translations, and of personal conduct standards which fortify the twisted reasoning. When we break down exactly what Cognitive-behavioral therapy is, we have to take it section by section.
Behavioral treatment has been around since the early 1900’s. Some popular psychologist we know who contributed to Behavioral therapy were Skinner, Pavlov, and Watson. Behaviorism is based on the idea that behaviors can be measured, taught and even changed. It is believed that our behavior is based on our responses to environmental stimuli. The principal wave of behavioral treatment happened during the 1940s in light of the passionate changes looked by the numerous WWII veterans coming back from war. Moving on, Cognitive therapy in the mid 1900s, is when Alfred Adler, Austrian psychotherapist generated the idea of fundamental oversights and their ability to create terrible feelings that made him one of the earliest advisors address insight in psychotherapy. His work motivated an American analyst Albert Ellis to create emotive conduct treatment also known as Rational emotive behavior therapy during the 1950s. This is presently viewed as one of the most important contribution to psychological psychotherapy.
After learning the history of behavior, the history of cognition in general begins over two thousands years ago. Aristotle, the greek philosopher placed importance on making sure his studies and ideas were based on empirical evidence while being cautious with experimental research. Succeeding, Rene Descartes was a seventeenth-century philosopher who created the famous saying, I think, therefore I am. This means that the act of actually being able to think proves that a thinker exists. He came up with this idea when trying to prove whether anyone could really know anything regardless of the fact that our senses can and have lid to us. Wilhelm Wundt is considered one of the biggest figures in modern psychology. He believed in the analysis of the contents of one’s own mind and experience. Even though today Wilhelm Wundt’s methods are recognized as being unreliable, he is a main part in the development of cognition because of his examination on human thought processes. The word cognition can primarily mean our thoughts but when used in psychology, “cognition” usually refers to processing of neural information, but if you were to be talking about cognition in social psychology the term it would refer to attitudes and group attributes. These many approaches to cognition evaluation are referenced in the fairly recent field of cognitive science, collaborative study of cognitive abilities and domains.
To continue, a theory is not a theory without notion. An assumption common in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is that cognitions are not simply mysterious short-lived processes, they can be measured, monitored, and changed. Asking people how they think and feel is a potentially effective way to understand their behavior. If cognitions can be measured they can also be refined. This means that the way that people think about the world and think about themselves can be changed, which is the ultimate goal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy when there is maladaptive behavior and cognitions. Some interventions common in Cognitive Behavioral therapy is learning coping mechanisms to manage stress and anxiety, for example, relaxation techniques such as deep breathing in through the nose out of the mouth, coping self-talk such as “I’ve done this before,there is nothing to be scared of.” Affirming actions and thoughts help counteract the negative emotions you’re feeling.
In retrospect, Pleasant activity scheduling is an effective Cognitive Behavioral Therapy technique. It has been seen to help majorly in depression over all other disorders Cognitive behavioral therapy treats. An example of pleasant activity scheduling is, say you’ve been in this funk that you are having trouble getting out of, a therapist who specializes in CBT could recommend, writing the next seven days down on a piece of paper, just to start off and see if the client is able to complete it, starting with the day we are on. For each day, schedule one pleasant activity, something you enjoy that doesn’t require you to make bad decisions, a thing that you wouldn't normally do on a normal basis. It could be as easy as reading a chapter book or going on a run just long enough to get you tired.
Other ways to alleviate the negative thoughts include, keeping a journal of feelings and accomplishments you completed that day to become aware of symptoms and to make it easier to change the behavior. By doing this, you are not only becoming aware of the emotion being elicited from the negative thinking pattern, but also the thought that is creating that emotion. A lot of the time patients come in because they are doing the following, Overgeneralizing, or the assumption that, for example, you go on a date and you are not asked back for that second date,
you thought it went perfectly, now you feel as though you arent loved and will never find it because of this one situation. Another common way of thinking is Dichotomous thinking or viewing the world in black or white, with nothing in between, no gray area. If your friends ditch you to hang out with other people, and you think everyone must hate you that is an example of dichotomous. Magnification is another cognitive distortion found in common therapy sessions with patients. Magnification is the constant viewing of something as more important than it actually is. For instance, you give a speech in your english class and have a couple of small slip ups, you finish up your speech and get compliments on it but you think your slip ups defined your whole speech, thinking you failed the assignment. By magnifying your slip ups you are distracting from the rest of your english speech which was not too bad. Even exposing clients to the thing that causes them fear, gradually, has been seen to help in Cognitive behavioral therapy.
Functional Analysis and Skills Training are two very important components when talking about cognitive behavioral therapy. First, Functional Analysis. It is involved in helping the client and counselor assess high risk situations that are likely to lead to the use of substances or to lead to harming oneself. Functional Analysis also provides insight into what the trigger could be. As therapy continues, Functional analysis helps identify the triggering situations or states in which the individual still has difficulty coping. Skills Training, on the other hand, can be viewed as a training session to help the client unlearn old habits associated with whatever it is that is causing them to make unhealthy decisions. The client learns to recognize and cope with the urges. In addition, this skills training helps clients learn to tolerate feelings like depression, anger and anxiety.
When you compare two different theories together it makes it easy to understand the pros and cons of one or both theory you are explaining. To begin, Cognitive behavioral therapy is a short-term therapy (ideally), aimed at helping patients identify patterns their negative thinking patterns and behaviors that lead to high risk situations. CBT is a set of techniques that create skills to reduce problematic psychological symptoms. Therapist’s in the Cognitive Behavioral therapy field tend to help work with clients to identify the thought patterns that may be harmful. The main goal is to replace them with healthy and productive thought patterns, so they can continue to live a healthy life. Working as a Cognitive Behavioral therapist, you may aide in clients setting goals and clear out negative patterns that keeps them from moving forward from a crisis.
In psychoanalysis, however, the therapist is more focused on past behavior rather than current and in addition to that, unconscious impulses occur. The goal of psychoanalysis includes bringing unconscious behavioral patterns to light, gaining awareness of what the patterns are and identifying how they influence actions. In other words, it is about gaining insight into one’s identity. In disagreement with Cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic therapy with a patient can last years, where CBT sessions can be as short as 2 weeks. Also, individuals who specialize in Cognitive behavioral therapy are more likely to be found in a university setting due to the fact that they are focused on completing research. While psychoanalytic therapist tend to lean more towards private practices, mostly focusing on gaining insight into an individual's identity and relationship patterns in a way that has true meaning.
Moving on, The definition of Conceptualization in reference to psychotherapy as a whole, is the process of formulating and understanding a patient’s problems within a specific and guided framework. A therapist begins to construct a cognitive conceptualization during their first session with a patient and continue to refine their conceptualization throughout treatment. In cognitive behavioral therapy, the conceptualization of a patient’s problems plays a big role in the entirety of this therapy. There has been a lot of research done for developing conceptual guidelines with a lot of the research focused mainly on depression and anxiety. Cognitive therapy has a lot to do with phenomenology (the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience). Cognitive therapists tend to focus mainly on the education and release of symptoms by directly assessing them, and then intervening when necessary upon the patient's automatic thoughts and beliefs.
To change the topic, we learned a lot about cultural relevance within different therapies during this semester of class. Overall, while researching this therapy, CBT has done a good job with keeping its therapy culturally relevant but it wasn’t always that way. Cognitive Behavioral therapy has been successful in treating anxiety disorders among the majority of the white populations for decades; however, studies researching more generality of CBT have often failed to mention to take marginalized status into consideration. The author of Enhancing the Cultural Sensitivity of Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Anxiety in Diverse Populations states “…..a meta-analysis of 57 effectiveness studies of CBT for adult anxiety disorders and found CBT to be effective across samples; however, in only six (10.5%) of these studies did African Americans or Caribbean Americans of African descent make up at least 20% of the sample and in only two (3.5%) did Latinos make up at least 20% of the sample.” (Stewart and Chambless (2009), (Graham, J. R., Sorenson, S., & Hayes-Skelton, S. A, 2013, pp. 2-3)).
For Cognitive Behavioral therapy to become culturally relevant, the first step is to become educated on what you are wanting to become culturally relevant on. By doing self-education, therapist should be learning about the history of a person life, their values and overall experiences of their culture. When having patients from different migrant backgrounds it's also important to connect elements of psychoeducation effectively to their thoughts and feelings.
To define, Psychoeducation is an exercise of education and awareness for those already seeking mental health assistance whether it be with a psychiatrist or psychologist. One of the most important aspects of psychoeducation is to connect aspects straight to their personal experiences. Such as, when describing the ways anxiety develops with a middle aged black male we use the psychoeducation to get a sense of his shared experiences with us related to aspects of his identity. For example, we talk solely about experiences of not getting a job based on the color of his skin; we would continue to show our understanding, and allowance of the fear he has with applying for jobs and socially interacting with authority. It creates a safer place for the client with a therapists validation, and allows trust to form. To counteract this, the one thing that can be difficult for the therapist in this aspect is many patients tend to be fixed on negative and automatic thoughts. A way to fight this is to reframe what these thoughts mean to them, are we breaking down every aspect of the situation that caused fear and reconstructing it? Because that is the goal.
Another way to make Cognitive Behavioral therapy more culturally relevant is Positive expectancy. It is the belief that the treatment will improve the problems that are of most problematic to them. For positive expectancy to be effective, the therapist must know what patients think their problem is. Teaching how to relieve these symptoms through various techniques. By addressing their uniqueness as a pro rather than a limitation, it will give hope to the patient in resolving these issues. If Cognitive Behavioral therapy takes into consideration the theoretical and empirical ideas it can result in greater prospect of confusion between the therapist and a traumatised client. The most common focus is on incorporating culturally relevant and congruent concepts.
I have a close bond with Cognitive behavioral therapy. Throughout high school and currently(when I go home for holiday breaks) I have been attending therapy, granted it has been off and on, for a couple years now, but the main cause of my distress was do to my anxiety and depression. I was actually told, by my mother who is a retired therapist, that this counselor specializes in Cognitive behavioral therapy and Rational emotive behavior therapy. At the time of my sessions, I had no idea what that meant, I knew they had to do with the various types of therapies but I never thought more of it. As my 50 minute sessions would continue, I would get worksheets to complete and would have to document every emotion that was negative at the time is was happening in a journal so I would be aware of it and the next session we would talk about what the emotions where. I would have 2 sessions per week which is uncommon for CBT, i found while researching but for me it was needed, it ultimately depends on the person and the situations. These therapy sessions were life or death for me, and the way they were conducted effectively helped me during a crucial part of my life. Looking back now, I am aware of what type of therapy it was and understand now, how it worked so well.
In addition to that, my therapist did a good job making sure CBT was culturally relevant through every session I had. She understood the issues addressing my race, and my issues fitting in, in a predominantly white community I was exposed to, as well as, why it was causing my anxiety and from there, where my depression stemmed from. Attending these sessions helped me understand the field of clinical work I am most interested in. By researching it as well as experience it firsthand from a patient's point of view is interesting. The way my therapist helped me, is all I hope for the future of my career. I can proudly say that as off right now, and after researching this topic in as much depth as I could, have not found an important negative or limitation.
Cognitive Behavioral therapy is universal in all populations. For instance, adolescents therapy vs geriatric therapy. There are many differences when addressing cognitive therapies and behavioral therapies for young individuals. Rather than the session being one on one, a lot of the times the therapist and child develop goals for together with the help of parent(s). This differs between populations for many reasons, one being because once you reach the age of 18, Hippa laws come into play and the decision of parent interaction is solely based on the individual obtaining this session. Not only can the population differ, there are many sub categories within Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Some of them include, Group CBT, CBT in combination with medication, Trauma-focused CBT etc.. Each section contributing to the exact needs of what the patient needs, not one session looking like the the other. Group CBT, is mainly focused on developing a therapeutic alliance between the group.
Being exposed to people going through similar situations as oneself can be good for a patient and put things into perspective for them. While the main focus for Trauma-focused CBT would revolve around addressing and learning how to cope with the trauma.
Not only is each type of CBT different based on population but, for example group CBT can have a lot to do with helping people cope with drug addictions. By sharing their successes and challenges with others who are facing the same problem, it makes it easier to cope, as if someone else is helping you carry the weight of your experiences. Another difference has a lot to do with how long the sessions last. During my session of CBT in combination with meds, they would never exceed 50 minutes but do to the fact that group sessions have many other individuals allowed to be speaking, it could be a session that last for at least 75 to 90 minutes.
Continuing, While individual counseling provides the opportunity to meet with clients on a one on one basis, group counseling offers the chance for group members to share their similar situations for mutual growth. Each having their own pros and cons based on who the individual(s) are and their experiences.
An individual session of cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance with someone who has generalized anxiety disorder, will have a lot to do with where the fear is coming from, how to respond when we feel the fear being brought up. How to exterminate the fear all together. Comparing this to Trauma CBT where the session would consist of what the trauma was, how to deal with triggers and memories. Often times, with trauma comes more issues. Addressing possibly, if the client is hurting themselves, how to deal with a more healthy way to express the emotions.
Basing our application solely on age population, The way the therapist communicates with the patients will differ. They will not talk to a 25 year old patient suffering from severe depression in the same tone and effectiveness they would if communicating with a 7 year victim of sexual assault. Their sentences with a younger child might be simplified in a way they can
understand. Their tone will be lighter and airy to dismiss the chance of fear the can easily be elicited in a child. They might have them draw a picture to explain their emotions, or have a toy section set up with coloring books, dolls and cars to create a more welcoming environment. A session with a 25 year old will be more complex, going in depth about what is causing this depression. Getting assigned homework during a session with an older individual will be seen as common versus a child. However the session is, and whichever branch an individual chooses, each therapist is different in their interpretation with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
In conclusion, while reading many different articles on Cognitive Behavioral therapy, it not only informed me on how exactly I was being counseled during my therapy sessions, but it confirmed the fact that, psychology has also been something I have been interested in, not only because of my own past traumas, but because I have seen how well therapists and psychologist contribute to a suffering individual(s) in ways they wouldn’t be able to learn unless they attended a therapy session. I had always been wary of if i was only doing this to follow in my mother's footsteps or was I truly interested in this topic. In addition, if I choose to specialize (in the future) in this therapy, I am now more knowledgeable with the information I am mimicking. I can only hope I can use what I’ve learned not only doing this essay, but from the entire semester in my future career in Psychology.