Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a highly popular psychological therapy or treatment that’s shown as effective for treating disorders such as depression and anxiety.
It’s not a new therapy and has an easily measurable practical structure. Those factors resulted in more successful clinical trials, which have secured its position as a recommended treatment from the NHS. Let’s learn more!
What Is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy?
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is one type of talking therapy that involves challenging and identifying unhelpful thoughts. It primarily works to help patients learn alternative behaviours and thinking patterns. Overall, that improves the way they feel.
CBT can explore the relationship people have with behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Overall, it focuses on those cognitive processes that will produce feelings. It has evolved from two psychology schools: cognitive therapy and behaviourism. Therefore, its roots are traced to those approaches.
Active participation from the patient is a key principle for CBT. Without it, the problem-focused and goal-oriented approach isn’t effective. Sessions are often well structured, so the client gets a better understanding of how cognition can correct behavioural dysfunctions.
With cognitive behaviour therapy, a person’s psychological problems are thought to develop because of cognitive distortions. These include:
- Personalisation – This is the attribution of those negative thoughts of the world and others. For example, the gymnastics coach is mean, so the gymnast believes it’s her fault.
- Fallacy of Change – This is the assumption that others will change to meet their needs if enough pressure is given. It’s a common distortion within relationships. For example, a woman feels that she would be happier if her partner made improvements to himself.
- Emotional Reasoning – This is the distortion that happens when feelings are believed to be facts. For example, you say, “I feel this way, so it must be true.”
- Fallacy of Fairness – This distortion measures everything by an imaginary fairness ruler. People might be resentful because they think they know what fairness is, but others don’t agree.
- Overgeneralisation – This means you come to broad negative conclusions based on an insignificant, singular event. For example, you tell yourself that you’re a horrible baker because you failed on one recipe.
- Filtering – This distortion includes magnification and minimisation. Minimisation focuses on underplaying an event’s significance. For example, you’re praised for a job performance, but you think it’s trivial. Magnification focuses on exaggeration for undesirable events and includes selective abstraction.
Behavioural Therapy Roots
Behavioural treatment for various mental disorders has been around since the 1900s. Skinner, Watson, and Pavlov developed theories for behavioural treatments and change. Therefore, behaviourism focuses on the idea that behaviours can be modelled, measured, and changed.
Overall, the first wave of cognitive behavioural therapy showed up in the 1930s and 1940s because of the emotional impact faced by the WWII veterans who returned from war. There was a direct need for short-term cognitive therapy that helped with generalised anxiety disorder, depression, and personality disorders.
Behaviourism is a theory of learning based on the idea that behaviours are acquired solely through conditioning. That happens when people interact with the environment, which shapes their actions and has cueing signals.
Before this, behaviour therapy was the approach used, though it was controversial when it was developed. One of the treatments used for that approach happened with youth for the correction of bed-wetting.
Initial respondent conditioning techniques were also used to understand anxiety, which was vital for creating the theory behind CBT and other behavioural strategies. Likewise, respondent conditioning also helped to discover extinction, counter-conditioning, and habituation.
Operant learning theory was crucial for childhood CBT development and behavioural therapy. From this theory, doctors developed negative and positive reinforcement for children. The deeper understanding of how cognition worked with behaviours contributed to their use in CBT.
Cognitive Therapy Roots
Albert Ellis was an American psychologist who was one of the primary figures for developing cognitive therapy. He believed there was an importance between behaviours and thoughts/feelings. Therefore, he created a theory and called it rational emotive behaviour therapy in the 1950s. It’s now considered one of the first forms of cognitive psychotherapy.
In a sense, it shows that the person’s emotional distress could arise from their thoughts of an event instead of the actual event.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Aaron Beck noticed certain patterns within his depressed clients. They held negative views of themselves, their future, and others. Regardless of how much they explored their past, the negative dysfunctional thinking didn’t shift. Therefore, he began researching whether someone could be depressed because they thought negative feelings about themselves, the world, and others. Cognitive therapy was now at the forefront.
When comparing cognitive behavioural therapy versus respondent conditioning, it seemed that the first option was the primary goal.
Automatic Thoughts within Cognitive Therapy
Dr Beck used three categories for those automatic thoughts. Patients had negative thoughts about the world, themselves, and the future. With those findings, he theorised other therapies to handle depression.
The theory of the irrational belief system from Dr Ellis and the theory of cognitive distortions from Beck helped to explain psychological problems better. Beck believed that, in childhood, maladaptive process development led to the issues. His theory focused on the cognitive triad. However, Dr Ellis’s theory was primarily based on defined irrational beliefs, which is called common irrational assumptions.
With the approach, Beck started helping his patients revaluate those thoughts they had about themselves. Overall, his patients developed more resilience to handle daily life functions and experienced long-lasting change.
The efficiency of cognitive behavioural therapy has been examined by many. Since it was introduced, it’s grown into a viable treatment option for many mental health problems. Therapists now specialise in this approach.
CBT practice grew into the mid-1970s to help treat higher-functioning patients. The transition didn’t occur automatically but through trial and error. Likewise, other behavioural therapy areas were developed to understand emotional self-control.
As the practice became stronger, new developments and expansions emerged for cognitive behavioural therapies. One of those was the Tripartite Model in 1991. That proposed a significant overlap in negative effects presented in those with anxiety and depression.
In 2018, the triple vulnerability model for emotional disorders was created, which expanded the work for CBD. It focuses primarily on a child’s perception of control over the environment. Parents can learn to help children understand and function within them.
CBT and its application have brought a wealth of knowledge and are showcased throughout psychology. The efficiency of treatment in adolescents and children is far-reaching. Such therapy helps people understand their environments and master them.
Another wave of CBT is starting to develop because many empirical studies have failed to prove the hypotheses. Though there have been many research trials, clinical practice isn’t as high. The shift is focusing on the language of cognition. This approach uses acceptance-based strategies and places less stress on how to alter cognitive distortions, as that may not be necessary.
With the acceptance-based strategy, patients are aware of the distortions, but they don’t try to control them. Instead, they commit to behavioural changes.
Combining the Approaches and Treating Multiple Issues
Behavioural therapies were highly successful in treating various conditions, such as anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and phobias. The popularity of such treatments started to soar, so CBT therapists began using those behavioural CBT techniques, incorporating them to treat disorders successfully. While each school of thought features a different emphasis, they are both concerned about what’s happening to the individual now.
Cognitive behaviour therapy is an ongoing psychotherapy practice that evaluates its treatments and techniques constantly. Therefore, it’s built up an extensive body of research for its effectiveness for use within a broad range of people’s psychological disorders. It’s been an effective therapy for treating many mental health disorders, such as:
- Major depressive disorder
- Anxiety
- Eating disorders
- Chronic fatigue
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Phobias
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Panic disorder
Today, many other therapies combine behavioural and cognitive therapies into their approach. These include:
- Dialectical behaviour therapy
- Acceptance and commitment therapy
- Eye movement reprocessing and desensitisation
- Multimodal therapy
- Reality therapy
- Integrative psychotherapy
Conclusion
It’s sometimes confusing to understand cognitive theory and behavioural therapy, but behaviour therapists can help you learn what automatic thoughts are if you’re a suitable candidate for the treatment.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is ideal for many types of people. It’s built around your needs, teaches you problem-solving skills, and helps you understand the cause of your problem. In some cases, you can stop using antidepressant medication and focus solely on behaviour therapy, though it depends on the situation.
Energetics Institute offers CBT services to help you control your condition and deal with mental disorders more effectively. Please contact us for assistance today!
References:
Clinical Psychology Review (Empirical Status for Cognitive behavioural Therapy – Meta-analysis review) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735805001005
https://www.klearminds.com/blog/history-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/
https://positivepsychology.com/cbt/#history
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470241/
https://cpe.psychopen.eu/index.php/cpe/article/view/6701/6701.html
Author:admin
