Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Dr. Aaron T. Beck

-Psychoanalytic psychotherapist (psychiatrist)
-Father of both Cognitive and Cognitive-behavioral therapy
¤ Aaron Beck’s observation on depressed clients revealed that they had negative bias
in their interpretation of certain life vents which attributed to their cognitive distortions.
¤Beck called it cognitive therapy because of the importance it places on the thinking. It
now known as cognitive behavioral therapy because therapy employs behavioral
techniques as well.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a common type of talk therapy (psychotherapy).
You work with a mental health counselor (psychotherapist or therapist) in a structured
way, attending a limited number of sessions. CBT helps you become aware of
inaccurate or negative thinking so you can view challenging situations more clearly and
respond to them in a more effective way.
CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how
we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts determine our feelings
and our behavior.

Why it's done

CBT is a useful tool to address emotional challenges. For example, it may help you:

 Manage symptoms of mental illness

 Treat a mental illness when medications aren't a good option

 Learn techniques for coping with stressful life situations

 Cope with grief or loss

 Overcome emotional trauma related to abuse or violence

 Cope with medical illness

 Manage chronic physical symptoms

Mental health disorders that may improve with CBT include:

 Depression
 Anxiety disorders

 Phobias
  Sleep disorders

 Eating disorder

 Bipolar disorders

 Schizophrenia

 Sexual disorders
Steps in CBT

CBT typically includes these steps:

 Identify troubling situations or conditions in your life. These may include such
issues as a medical condition, divorce, grief, anger or symptoms of a mental health
disorder. You and your therapist may spend some time deciding what problems
and goals you want to focus on.
 Become aware of your thoughts, emotions and beliefs about these
problems. Once you've identified the problems to work on, your therapist will
encourage you to share your thoughts.

 Identify negative or inaccurate thinking. To help you recognize patterns of

thinking and behavior that may be contributing to your problem, your therapist may
ask you to pay attention to your physical, emotional and behavioral responses in
different situations.

 Reshape negative or inaccurate thinking. Your therapist will likely encourage

you to ask yourself whether your view of a situation is based on fact or on an
inaccurate perception of what's going on.

Result
Cognitive behavioral therapy may not cure your condition or make an unpleasant
situation go away. But it can give you the power to cope with your situation in a healthy
way and to feel better about yourself and your life.

Phases of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Therapy

Breathing Exercises
Your CBT sessions will start with the development of healthy coping skills, so you can
naturally calm yourself down. This is an important aspect of the therapy since you will
continually challenge your beliefs and naturally calm down to rewire your system.
Mindfulness Practice
The second phase of CBT teaches you to become mindful of your inner thought
patterns and feelings. Negative thought patterns frequently invade your subconscious in
trying situations.

Trigger Exposure

The third phase of CBT focuses on identifying and exposing yourself to your personal
triggers. Triggers can be sights, smells, noises, locations and experiences that ignite
your mental health symptoms, including anxiety

TECHNIQUES IN CONDUCTING CBT

 Validity testing. The therapist asks the patient to defend his or her thoughts and
beliefs. If the patient cannot produce objective evidence supporting his or her
assumptions, the invalidity, or faulty nature, is exposed.
 Cognitive rehearsal. The patient is asked to imagine a difficult situation he or
she has encountered in the past, and then works with the therapist to practice
how to successfully cope with the problem. When the patient is confronted with a
similar situation again, the rehearsed behavior will be drawn on to deal with it.
 Guided discovery. The therapist asks the patient a series of questions designed
to guide the patient towards the discovery of his or her cognitive distortions.
 Journaling. Patients keep a detailed written diary of situations that arise in
everyday life, the thoughts and emotions surrounding them, and the behavior that
accompany them. The therapist and patient then review the journal together to
discover maladaptive thought patterns and how these thoughts impact behavior.
 Homework. In order to encourage self-discovery and reinforce insights made in
therapy, the therapist may ask the patient to do homework assignments. These
may include note-taking during the session, journaling (see above), review of an
audiotape of the patient session, or reading books or articles appropriate to the
therapy. They may also be more behaviorally focused, applying a newly learned
strategy or coping mechanism to a situation, and then recording the results for
the next therapy session.
 Modeling. Role-playing exercises allow the therapist to act out appropriate
reactions to different situations. The patient can then model this behavior.