hello this is dr.

Gandhi welcome to my
video on the theory of cognitive therapy
cognitive therapy is one of many
cognitive behavioral therapies and
usually when refer to the term cognitive
therapy were referring to the therapy
developed by Aaron Beck so it's also
known as beckii in'
cognitive therapy and this therapy looks
at the relationship between thoughts
behaviors and feelings and how that
relationship can be modified to
alleviate symptoms so let's take a look
at the theory of personality behind
cognitive therapy one of the key
constructs in cognitive therapy is the
construct of the schema and the schema
is a filter and all people have multiple
schemas or multiple filters and they see
the world through these filters
sometimes the filters are clear and
sometimes they are distorted
so in these schemas there are beliefs
about the self and the environment and
most of these beliefs are positive
however some are negative and these
negative schemas are of most interest to
cognitive therapists some schemas are
active every day these are referred to
as active schemas and some schemas are
only triggered occasionally and we refer
to these as inactive schemas under
Beck's theory of cognitive therapy
childhood experiences can lead to both
positive and negative core beliefs and
again the negative core beliefs just
like the negative schemas are of the
most interest to cognitive therapist
core beliefs can be divided into three
broad categories helplessness unloved
ability and worthlessness core beliefs
are global over generalized and rigid
and usually activated
by a stressor next we have intermediate
beliefs and these are attitudes rules
expectations and assumptions that
individuals have intermediate beliefs
combined with situations or stressors
and that leads to automatic thoughts the
concept of the automatic thought is
central to cognitive therapy these
thoughts are thought to be common to all
people to be spontaneous to be just
outside of conscious awareness and
usually the automatic thoughts of
interest to a cognitive therapist are
negative but not all automatic thoughts
that are destructive or the lead to
symptoms are negative some automatic
thoughts can be distorted and some
automatic thoughts can be accurate but
the conclusion of the individual draws
from the thought is distorted so let's
take a look at the cause of symptoms
under the theory of cognitive therapy
well multiple factors are involved when
you look at the cause of symptoms you
have genetic environmental and social
factors and this is a bit different from
what we see from many of the other
theories of counseling that have a
fairly straightforward and uncomplicated
way at looking at causation in cognitive
therapy multiple factors are recognized
and it's believed that symptoms do not
have one single cause in addition to
genetic environmental and social factors
automatic thoughts again mostly negative
automatic thoughts are thought to be a
cause of symptoms some automatic
thoughts are dysfunctional thoughts and
another cause of symptoms we have are
the cognitive distortions and this is
also a key
in the theory of cognitive therapy
cognitive distortions are consistent
errors in thinking and I'll discuss
these in more detail in the techniques
section and then another cause of
symptoms would be a maladaptive schema
so let's take a look at the techniques
used in cognitive therapy and here I
have some of the more popular techniques
that you'll see used in cognitive
therapy and you can see the first I have
listed here is the therapeutic alliance
the therapeutic alliance is a crucial
part of successful treatment under the
theory of cognitive therapy the
counselor and the client are Co
discovers of solutions and the counselor
takes on a non-judgmental role is
authentic and offers accurate empathy
just as in person-centered therapy the
next technique I have here is
identifying of automatic thoughts and
this is when a counselor works with a
client to try to determine which
thoughts are automatic thoughts
specifically automatic thoughts that are
leading to symptoms so negative
automatic thoughts or dysfunctional
automatic thoughts the counselor and the
client work together to identify them
and the counselor shows the client how
to use this skill in the future so the
client can identify their own automatic
thoughts between counseling sessions
another major technique in cognitive
therapy is evaluating evidence so for
example after an automatic thought has
been identified the counselor may ask
the client to evaluate the evidence that
supports that the automatic thought is
true or the supports that the automatic
thought is not true once a dysfunctional
automatic thought has been identified
and
the evidence has been evaluated the
counselor works with the client to
develop what we refer to as adaptive
responses and another term for adaptive
responses is self-talk so this is a
thought that the client thinks to
themself it's different than an
automatic thought it's not spontaneous
it's actually rehearsed and the adaptive
response is applied when the client
identifies an automatic thought another
technique is challenging core beliefs
direct challenges - core beliefs are
often not successful but this technique
can work in some instances and it's
still generally recommended with the
understanding that it may help to
improve insight and to gather
information but it's rarely going to
directly lead to change next we have the
technique of cognitive rehearsal and
this is where the counselor asks the
client to imagine in the counseling
session to imagine a situation perhaps a
situation that's coming up that it's
thought to be causal stress and this
allows the client to work through the
stressful situation in a safe place and
try to better and more accurately
evaluate the situation and potentially
respond to that situation when it does
come to respond better and more
productively the next item is the
behavioral experiment and this is again
a key component of cognitive therapy
cognitive therapy doesn't focus on
behavioral experiments as much as
behavior therapy does but it's still a
key component and it fits in nicely with
the idea that thoughts behaviors and
feelings relate to one another and if a
person can change the way they think
or if they can change what they do that
can impact their feelings the next
technique is identifying cognitive
distortions so cognitive distortions are
not only identified they're labeled and
they're evaluated as I mentioned before
cognitive storsch ins are consistent
errors and thinking and there are many
different types of cognitive distortions
a few of the more common types would be
all-or-nothing thinking also known as
dichotomous thinking catastrophizing
disqualifying the positive labeling
emotional reasoning magnification or
minimization mind reading over
generalization mental filter also called
selective abstraction personalization
tunnel-vision and what we refer to as
imperatives like statements that have
the word should or must in them it's
important to recognize that a client can
have more than one cognitive tortion
active in their thinking at the same
time next we have the downward arrow
technique and in this technique the
counsellor asks the client about the
meaning of an automatic thought or the
meaning of an intermediate belief and by
asking about the meaning it's thought
that this will help the client move
closer to discovering intermediate and
core beliefs the next technique we have
here is called D catastrophizing and
this is often done when a counselor asks
what if questions to a client so a
client has a situation that they're
describing at a stressful and the
counselor asks what if it happens and
then perhaps the client explains the
consequences that they predict
and then the counselor will again ask
well what if those consequences occur
well will that lead to and the client
will get answer and the theory is by
doing this eventually you're going to
move to the most frightening or
distressing consequence of a particular
situation and the client will develop
insight as to their ability to survive
it so their understanding of how they
can survive the worst case scenario will
grow that's D catastrophizing the next
technique is acceptance
sometimes automatic thoughts are true
and sometimes situations are unpleasant
and would naturally lead to unpleasant
emotional and behavioral consequences
for most people and in these cases the
cognitive therapist will work with the
client to help the client achieve
acceptance of what cannot be changed and
the last technique I have here is
homework and there are several different
types of homework in cognitive therapy
one of the most popular types is what's
called the thought record and a thought
record allows a client to work through a
situation and an automatic thought the
reaction to the automatic thought as
well as develop an adaptive response and
evaluate how well that works there are
also other types of homework like the
daily mood graph or activity charts and
the behavioral experiments I mentioned
earlier also fall under homework so
let's take a look at the goals in
cognitive therapy well the goals are set
collaboratively by the client and the
counselor and this is consistent with
the therapeutic alliance that the
counselor is trying to form and build
throughout the counseling process
this goal that is set collaboratively by
the client the counselor is often
achieved by changing the schema and
there are three different types of
changes that can occur first you have a
schema reinterpretation and with the
schema reinterpretation the client does
identify and recognize the schema but
instead of moving in the direction of a
change the client works around that
schema for example if a particular
schema is causing challenges in a
relationship an individual may choose to
end that relationship and find another
relationship where that schema would not
be disruptive that's an example of a
schema reinterpretation next we have a
schema modification and with the schema
modification the client makes some
changes to the schema but not enough to
eliminate all the symptoms so it's a
partial schema change as opposed to a
complete schema change and the last type
we have is schema restructuring and this
is when a significant or complete change
in a particular schema is made by the
client another goal is to help the
client to apply the adaptive responses
are self talk when automatic thoughts
are present this is thought to reduce
automatic thoughts and continually
applying adaptive responses is thought
to then change intermediate and core
beliefs and changing the core beliefs
that is a major goal in cognitive
therapy and it's important to recognize
here that it's done indirectly in most
cases rather than directly challenging
the core belief
even though that can sometimes be
successful the core belief has changed
by using self-talk in response to
dysfunctional automatic thoughts so now
let's take a look at the last slide and
this is where I offer my opinion on how
a theory of counseling can be integrated
into a counseling style so it's worth
noting here that this of course is my
opinion and in my counseling style I use
a lot of cognitive therapy so this is
one of those theories that I take a lot
of components from as I form my
counseling style and apply my counseling
style and there are many elements of
cognitive therapy that I like and that I
think are productive for clients the
whole idea of the schema the idea that
people have a filter and they see things
clearly or with some level of distortion
I think is a helpful construct the idea
of cognitive distortions or consistent
errors in thinking the individuals make
I think this is a useful concept to
integrate into a counseling style
because when cognitive distortions are
identified and challenged it can open up
new ways of thinking new flexible ways
of thinking that can relieve symptoms
the whole idea of core beliefs
intermediate beliefs and automatic
thoughts and how they relate to one
another I find this to be useful
I find this also to be a straightforward
and logical way at looking at belief
systems and thoughts similarly I like
the idea of self-talk or applying
adaptive responses so automatic thoughts
are spontaneous but self-talk is
deliberate
the client has control over the
self-talk even if they don't have
control over the automatic thoughts so I
find this concept again to be logical
and productive and also very helpful to
clients it's an area that they have
direct control over it's concrete
the adaptive responses can be built in
advance and then the client can use them
when they identify an automatic flight
the next item I have here is one of the
types of homework the behavioral
experiment and again I find behavioral
experiments to be useful it helps the
client to stay active in working toward
alleviating symptoms and realizing
positive change between sessions and for
that matter I like many of the other
types of homework that we see in
cognitive therapy including the thought
record which allows a client to have
structure around working through an
Automag thought and all the way to the
development of an adaptive response now
even though I like much of what's
available under this theory of cognitive
therapy I do have some criticisms of
cognitive therapy when it comes to
integrating it into a counseling style
cognitive therapy is not for every
client it's a highly structured
counseling modality and every client
won't respond well necessarily to that
type of environment sometimes what's
important for a client is the ability to
tell their story and work through
challenging childhood experiences and
although that can be done with cognitive
therapy when we think of cognitive
therapy we usually think of this way of
understanding in terms of like core
beliefs intermediate beliefs and
automatic thoughts and these different
techniques and not as much an
exploration of
what happened in a person's past another
concern I have with cognitive therapy is
that much like behavior therapy or
rational emotive behavior therapy RBT a
counselor runs the risk when using
cognitive therapy of appearing a little
distant and a little cold because the
counselor is continually applying
various techniques and may not be
attending as well in terms of accurate
empathy and building therapeutic
alliance in general overall I feel that
cognitive therapy can be integrated
quite well in too many different
counseling styles and I find it to be a
pragmatic and productive therapy I hope
you found this video on cognitive
therapy to be useful as always if you
have any questions or concerns feel free
to contact me and I'll be happy to
assist you
English (auto-generated)