Cognitive Therapy Flashcards
History of cognitive therapy
- Phenomenological approach (focus on subjective experiences)
- Emphasizing the role of beliefs in behavior change
Aaron Beck
- Trained in psychoanalysis
- Observed consistent biases in cognitive processing
- Developed a theory of emotional disorders and cognitive model of depression
Psychoanalysis believes that depression is…
Anger turned inward
Cognitive therapy believes that depression is…
A biased perception of reality
Cognitive processing
- Our biasing of the world around us and our perceptions
- My perception is not objective reality, it’s an interpretation of what I am paying attention to
What is the theory of personality for cognitive therapy?
- Personality is our temperament and cognitive schemas combined
- Our personality dimensions are made up of clusters of attributes and styles of responding
How is distress caused in the theory of for cognitive therapy personality?
- Distress come from a systematic bias in information processing
- Distress is on the same continuum as normal behavior and results from perceived threat, maladaptive interpretations, and reduced cognitive and reasoning abilities
Temperament
One’s general disposition based on genetic/biological factors
Cognitive schemas
Fundamental beliefs/assumptions that we make and are reinforced through later learning processes
- Attributes/responses reflect our schemas in action
Theory of personality for cognitive therapy: core beliefs
- Foundation of maladaptive schemas
- Broad, develop early
- Stable
Theory of personality for cognitive therapy: underlying assumptions
- Give rise to automatic thoughts
- Shape perceptions, provide interpretation and meaning
- Drawing conclusions without evidence
- Stable
Theory of personality: automatic thoughts
- Spontaneous and triggered by circumstance (situation dependent)
- Stimulus -> automatic thought -> emotion and behavior
- The words we say to ourselves about the assumption
Theory of personality: voluntary thoughts
- The most accessible and stable thoughts
- Aware of these thoughts, you decided to have these thoughts
Cognitive distortion: catastrophizing
The tendency to blow circumstances out of proportion by making problems larger than real life
- Ex) thinking you will never graduate if you get a bad grade in school
Cognitive distortion: personalization
The tendency to take blame for absolutely everything that goes wrong in your life
- Interpreting ambiguous information relevant to the self
- Ex) if someone is in a bad mood, interpret it as your fault
Cognitive distortion: overgeneralizing
The tendency to make broad generalizations based upon a single event and minimal evidence
- Ex) stereotypes
Cognitive distortion: emotional reasoning
The tendency to interpret your experience based upon how you’re feeling in the moment
- Ex) receiving constructive criticism can make you feel bad, therefore you interpret the event as bad
Cognitive distortion: shoulding and musting
The tendency to make unrealistic and unreasonable demands on yourself or others
- Ex) expecting your partner to always know exactly what you’re thinking
Cognitive distortion: magnification and minimization
The tendency to magnify the positive attributes of another while minimizing your own
- Downplaying your achievement
- Issue on social media
- Ex) comparing grades with your friend and their’s is slightly higher than your’s, you think that they are better
Cognitive distortion: mind-reading
The tendency to assume that you know what another person is thinking without sufficient evidence
- Ex) assuming your colleague is grumpy because of their home life but it’s actually because they overslept
Describe the therapeutic relationship in CBT
- Collaborative in making treatment goals, setting an agenda
- Therapist as a guide and catalyst for change
- Warm, empathetic, genuine, and curious approach
- Emphasizes patient responsibility (10,080 minutes in a week)
- Regularly elicit feedback from the patient
Explain the goals of cognitive therapy
- Correct the biases in faulty information processing
- Not simply a substitution of positive beliefs for negative ones
- Develop a habit of making alternative explanations instead of jumping to conclusions
- Treat thoughts as testable hypothesis that you can seek evidence for
Explain the cognitive triad of depression
- How cognitive distortions are applied
- Self: decreased sense of self worth
- Hopelessness: about the future, helpless
- World: general pessimism
What are the three biases/hallmarks underlying anxiety?
- Exaggerated perception of danger
- Difficulty recognizing saftey cues
- Minimized ability to cope
