Cognitive Therapy Flashcards
Starting point CT
“Psychopathology stems from the way in which information is selected and processed. Cognitive therapy focuses on awareness and influencing of these processes through critical reflection and testing against empirical reality ”
Cognitive restructuring
Beck: Cognitive therapy (CT)
Theory: Dysfunctional schedules (schemas?) ensure the development and maintenance of complaints.
Treatment: Detect dysfunctional cognitions and maladaptive schema’s change them into functional cognitions and functional schema’s to influence emotions and behavior
Characteristics of schema’s
`• Rigid thinking patterns about the relation with others, the world, the future and about oneself.
- Patient is convinced of the truth of these thinking patterns
- Stressful for the patient
Basic assumptions
Fundamental views on oneself, others, the world and the future.
Characteristics: general, rigid and overgeneralized
Example:
- Being helpless
- Not being loved
Depression: Cognitive Triade
“The central tenet of Beck’s (1987) highly influential cognitive theory of depression holds that depressed relative to nondepressed persons think more negatively about themselves, their world, and their future. This constellation of negative beliefs (e.g., “I am worthless, everyone hates me, and nothing will ever go well for me”) is called the cognitive triad of depression.
(Beck, 1970,1987; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979, pp. 11-12). “- (McIntosh, C. N., & Fischer, D. G. (2000). )
Causes of depression
- Genetic factors
- Social and environmental factors
- Chemical disruption
- Hormonal disruption
• Negative life events/negative thoughts
Depression and cognitive processes
- Focus on negative material
- Attention continues to “stick to negative material“
- Recall mood matching material
- Difficult with specific memories
- Ruminate
Cognitieve model: Depression
Goal of cognitive restructuring in patients with depression.
- Helping to clarify which opinions/cognitions are responsible for the onset and course of psychopathology
- CT is a method to learn the patient to doubt the truthfullness of ones cognitions and opinions and replace dysfunctional cognitions by functional cognitions.
Cognitive restructuring in practice
“Identify and modify our default ways of thinking about things to be more flexible and realistic.”
Theory of depression(Beck)
The function of schema’s
- Perception of information
- Interpretation of information
- Transformation of information
- Memory, recall of information
- Decision making based on information
Automatic thoughts
“Specific words or sentences about oneself that arise in a stressful situation leading directly to dysfunctional negative feelings.”
Examples of themes and automatic thoughts
Responisbility/guilt:
I am a bad person
Safety
I am vulnerable
Selfworth
I have to be perfect
Freedom of choice
I cannot succeed
Thinking error cycle