College Paper
in my college class this year , we had to write a paper on something we learned in the class and i wrote my paper on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
APA Paper
Introduction to Psychology
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
College of Alameda
J. Stamatakis
October 24, 2015
By: Breanna Dean
Introduction
The Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Theory, is a theory that is based on the fundamentals of mental health and counseling. With this theory, you as one receiving the therapy you deal with and work with a therapist or psychotherapist and attend sessions to stay updated and up to date with the emotional patterns. This therapy helps you keep up with the negative thoughts and ideas that circle in your head and cause you to think about your reactions to the things that are going on with you and keep you calm and aware of how to handle the problems that you are going through and learning to react in ways that won’t cause you to continue with your negativity. Most people assume that this theory is only made to treat those who are facing depression, however it treats many other emotional problems as well as other mental disorders. Its name refers to the blend of cognitive as well as behavioral issues that are needed to help patients. The way it works is that it shows and proves that not all of these disorders can be solved by an examination and study of the mental processes going on in a person's head but also based on the communities and environments that could shape how they process certain thoughts that aren't all rational. This theory is heavily thought focused and based on actions being taken by therapists attempting to help address specific issues that a client is going through. This therapy is known for its more rather direct approach onto cognitive behavior. Whereas most therapists looks for a reason in behavior for why a client acts in such a way, cognitive behavioral behaviorists differ in that they believe that the disorders a client goes through has to do with the bond of a hidden stimulus of thoughts and responses that can be avoided. They take more of a scientific approach rather than just an emotional imbalance of reasoning that other therapists uphold and practice.
Examples and Interventions
When it comes to common examples, interventions and techniques within this theory, these behaviorists come amongst this therapy very interestingly. The therapy can be useful in many different types and forms of conditions and disorders. Some of these include anxiety, personality, mood, eating habits, addictions, self dependence, depression and many others. CBT Therapists use many techniques to help treat patients.Most of the techniques surrounding the CBT theory can include cognitive, behavioral, environmental, biological, supportive, interpersonal, and/or experimental diagnosis. The therapist select the method in which they are going to use based upon the client specifically and their own needs and problems in the therapy session. In this theory in particular, there is not a set of behavioral patterns for every client, it varies based upon their emotional needs and behavioral disorders. The treatment of this varies among different disorders and therapists because in order to create a bond and relationship between the therapist and the client. The specific disorders each call for a specific treatment and the treatments change and are adapted for different age groups.The techniques vary for depression, anxiety, personality disorders, post traumatic stress disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, children and adolescents, and weight loss and maintenance. Most of these techniques that are provided to these clients are known to help and be more individualized rather than just being one set of rules and treatments that doesn't apply to everyone. They seem to be more effective as well when they are individualized by examination of different clients because it suits them in a particular manner that wouldn’t take place the same if they were not as personal. The techniques seem to provide more of a direct connection and easy appeal to help diagnose and treat each client separately.
Effective/Non-Effective Aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Theory
When it comes to the aspects of the theory that I personally find effective they definitely do take a different form. In the research that I performed, I found that in lots of trial runs that were performed by behaviorists, the CBT Theory has proved itself to be useful in many different areas of therapy. I find most of the ways in which the theory operates to be very effective based upon its approach alone. While more simplistic therapists seem to seek and find the why for why their clients do most things, the CBT theory tries to dig deeper and find the how. I like how the relationship between therapist and client is learned and studied before any type of diagnostic is performed. This seems effective because it gives more of a hands on approach while also gathering details that one wouldn't necessarily find if just searching for the why to the particular emotional problem or disorder. Though some people argue that CBT only deals with more simple issues, no disorder or behavioral problem is a simple issue. They all have their own parts to them that can be more difficult depending on the particular person who is going through the treatment.Like most things in life, there are always downfalls to certain scenarios when theirs so much positive, so in this disorder, some things to me are definitely not as effective. These are things like the study of depression in CBT therapy and the discussion among researchers on the subject that in the study there has been beliefs that most treatments are found to be more effective than others, due to the fact that some of the disorders have been taken more time in them unlike other disorders that aren’t as important as the others. Also, in conducted research it has been found that CBT therapy has the highest client dropout rates of those who stop coming to their therapy sessions.
Interaction with Cultures
Although I’m not super confident in the interaction with other cultures when it comes to theory, I am pretty sure that the interaction that it has an impact on how we as different people who live in different communities need to be treated. With this, it is important between cultures that with this theory the initiatives are taken to cater to all who have had past disorders from events in history some including slavery, the holocaust, and other traumatic events that call for different types of treatments.
Conclusion
Finally, I enjoyed studying this theory only because their was a lot that I wasn’t aware of regarding the way therapy varies among the different types that are out there. I would really enjoy taking more time to study the individual diagnosis of adolescents being that I am a teenager and I believe it would be quite interesting to see how different and possibly difficult we as teenagers prove to be in this study of behavioral and cognitive therapy. I would also like to see if their have been any patterns and trials of the patterns that could provide possibly more evidence towards what’s being done.
Reference Page
Hockenbury , D. (2014). Discovering Psychology ( 6th edition ). New York: Worth Publishers.
"Cognitive-behavioral Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder." PsycEXTRA Dataset (1997): n. pag. Web.