Cognitive Therapies
Cognitive therapies assume that faulty thinking is the basis of most psychological difficulties. They are also often referred to as cognitive-behavioral approaches because they combine the insights into behavior provided by cognitive psychology with the methodological approaches of behaviorism.
Rational-Emotive Therapy
A directive, confrontational therapy developed by Albert Ellis and designed to challenge and modify the irrational beliefs thought to cause personal distress.
Rational-emotive therapy is based on Ellis’s ABC theory:
- A: The activating event
- B: The person’s belief about the event
- C: The emotional consequence that follows
Exercise
Use what you have learned about Albert Ellis’s rational-emotive therapy to identify—and perhaps even eliminate—an irrational belief that you hold about yourself.
- Identify an irrational belief, preferably one that causes some stress in your life. For example, maybe you feel that you must earn all A’s in order to think of yourself as a good person.
- Ask yourself the following questions, and write down your answers in as much detail as possible:
- Where does this belief come from? Can you identify the time in your life when it began?
- Why do you think this belief is true? What evidence can you think of that “proves” your belief?
- Can you think of any evidence to suggest that this belief is false? What evidence contradicts your belief? Do you know anyone who does not cling to this belief?
- How does holding this belief affect your life, both negatively and positively?
- How would your life be different if you stopped holding this belief? What would you do differently?
Aaron T. Beck claims that much of the misery endured by a depressed and anxious person can be traced to automatic thoughts—unreasonable but unquestioned ideas that rule the person’s life.
A therapy designed to change maladaptive behavior by changing the person’s irrational thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. The goal of Beck’s cognitive therapy is to help patients stop their negative thoughts as they occur and replace them with more objective thoughts.
Cognitive therapy is brief, usually lasting only 10 to 20 sessions. It teaches patients to change the catastrophic interpretations of their symptoms and thereby prevent the symptoms from escalating into panic. Cognitive therapy has proved effective for generalized anxiety disorder.
