Cognitive Behavior Therapy - Outline

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

AKA: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy – REBT

(Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck)
  1. Assumptions:
    2.
    • People contribute to their own problems and symptoms in how they interpret events and situations.
    • Reorganization of one’s self-statements will result in a reorganization of one’s behavior. Self-talk is important.
    • People have the capacity for growth and actualization, yet they fall short of these because of incorrect thinking and learned patterns of self-defeat.
    • Negatives: This theory does not work well with less intelligent people. Does not explore emotional issues – rests solely on thinking. Can be harmful to borderline people because of the aggressive approach of the therapist.
  2. A B C Theory of Personality:
    • An event does not cause the emotion experience, but rather one’s belief about the event.
    • An "A" (activating event) triggers our "B" (belief about the event – our filter), which results in our "C" (consequence). A and B are related, but only B causes C. {A« B® C}
    • Example: A rare failing grade does not cause depression and self doubt, but the failing grade may trigger the belief that one is ignorant, and that negative self-belief causes the depression.
    • The solution is to change our "B." In the case of this example, the grade is rare and the person may have been unprepared, but he is not ignorant and has the abilities to do better in the future. One feels the way he thinks, so he needs to change his thinking.
  3. Common Cognitive Distortions
    • Arbitrary inferences, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, magnification, minimization, mislabeling, polarized thinking, others…
  4. Methods of Changing Maladaptive Beliefs
    • Disputing irrational beliefs, cognitive homework, changing one’s language (no more negative absolutes), role playing, others…
  5. Personal:
    • I found it interesting that although Ellis is obviously a "worldly" person, he stumbles upon a few key Biblical truths in his theory. First, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he," and second, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it shall eat the fruit of it." (Proverbs 23:7 and 18:21 – Modern King James Version). What one says and believes about himself largely determine who he is as a person.
Filed under: EDC 543 Theories and Techniques of Counseling
Copyright: June, 2002 - David Profitt