Week 4: Psychological Approaches: Individual Therapy Pt.2 Flashcards
Emphasizes the role of the environment in shaping behavior.
It’s all a matter of what can be seen and what can be measured.
Behavioral therapies focus on changing behaviors through learning principles.
Behaviorism
A naturally occurring stimulus is placed with a neutral stimulus allowing the neutral stimulus to, in time, evoke a natural reflex.
Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
Learner makes a connection with the consequences associated with his/her behavior through reinforcements and punishments.
Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
Irrational or distorted thought patterns that contribute to emotional distress.
Cognitive Distortions
Systematic errors in thinking that affect how we perceive and interpret information.
Cognitive Biases (Thinking Errors)
A therapeutic approach that focuses on changing negative thought patterns and behaviors.
What actually matters is not the situation itself, but the cognitive processes, the cognitive content that an individual goes through in order to evaluate the event.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A self-perpetuating cycle in which negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors reinforce each other.
Negative thoughts can lead to negative emotions and behaviors, which in turn reinforce negative thoughts.
Vicious Cycle
Exaggerating the negative consequences of an event.
Catastrophizing
Drawing broad conclusions based on a single event.
Overgeneralization
Viewing situations in extreme terms (black or white).
All-or-nothing thinking
Is a key technique in CBT, as it helps individuals break free from negative thought patterns and improve their emotional well-being.
Is a specific technique within cognitive restructuring that involves reframing a situation in a more positive or neutral way.
Cognitive Reappraisal
The process of evaluating an event or situation and assigning meaning to it. It’s how we interpret and make sense of our experiences.
Cognitive Appraisal
Cognitive Appraisal vs Cognitive Reappraisal?
Cognitive appraisal is the initial evaluation, while cognitive reappraisal is a subsequent process of changing that evaluation.
Examples:
CA - If someone doesn’t wave back at you, you might appraise the situation as a sign of rejection or indifference.
CRA - If you initially appraised the situation of someone not waving back as rejection, you might reappraise it by thinking, “Maybe they didn’t see me.”
Activating Event or Antecedent > Beliefs > Consequences
ABC Model
Focuses on challenging the content of cognitive distortions AND more:
Focuses on:
Acceptance: Embracing difficult emotions and experiences without trying to avoid or suppress them.
Mindfulness: Paying attention to the present moment without judgment.
Values-based living: Aligning one’s actions with personal values and goals.
Second Wave CBT
Focusing exclusively on the negative aspects of a situation.
Mental Filter
Assuming you know what others are thinking.
Mind Reading
Deeper-seated beliefs about oneself and the world.
Intermediate Beliefs
Fundamental beliefs about oneself that are deeply ingrained and difficult to change.
Core Beliefs
NATs (Negative Automatic Thoughts)
Intermediate Beliefs
Core Beliefs
Life Events
Early Learning Experience
CBT Layers of Cognition
These factors can influence the development of negative automatic thoughts, intermediate beliefs, and core beliefs.
Early Learning Experience and Life Events
General beliefs about ourselves.
Much deeper and less available to conscious awareness.
Core Beliefs and Intermediate Beliefs
Situation-specific.
More accessible to awareness.
Thoughts that happen ona. daily basis.
Negative Automatic Thoughts
Refers to our immediate perception of our surroundings and our own thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
It’s the mental state where we are fully awake, alert, and aware of what is happening around us and within ourselves.
Conscious Awareness
The ability to focus on specific stimuli or thoughts.
Attention
The process of interpreting sensory information.
Perception
The ability to recognize oneself as a separate entity from the world.
Self Awareness
The ability to set goals and direct our actions towards achieving them.
Intentionality
Moves away from focusing solely on changing cognitive content.
Offers a broader range of techniques for addressing mental health issues.
Third Wave CBT
Emphasizes acceptance of difficult emotions and living in accordance with personal values.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Focuses on mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Developed CBT to address pervasive and longstanding interpersonal difficulties that come under the umbrella of borderline personality disorder.
Marsha Linehan
Focuses on finding balance between acceptance and change.
DBT therapists accept clients as they are, while they also acknowledge that they need to change to reach their goals.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Emphasizes the social aspect of treatment. It consists of a package of treatments:
Team-based interventions
Group work
Telephone support
One-on-one therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
What is DBT’s Approach to Mental Distress?
Stress Model: Psychological disorders are the result of a predisposition activated by environmental stressors.
Means a synthesis, or integration of opposites.
Dialectical
Addresses deep-seated core beliefs and schemas that contribute to psychological distress.
Identifies 18 potential schemas that can contribute to psychological distress.
Schema Therapy
A cognitive framework or mental representation that organizes and interprets information.
Deeply ingrained patterns of thought and behavior that can contribute to psychological distress.
Schema
Refer to therapeutic techniques that primarily focus on changing the specific content of an individual’s thoughts and beliefs.
This involves identifying and challenging negative or distorted thought patterns and replacing them with more positive or realistic ones.
Content-Oriented Cognitive Interventions
Identifying and challenging negative automatic thoughts and replacing them with more balanced or positive alternatives.
Cognitive Restructuring
What are examples of third-wave psychotherapy treatments?
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
- Schema Therapy
- Behavioral Activation
- Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy
A mental health condition characterized by unstable moods, relationships, and self-image.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Individuals with BPD are emotionally vulnerable, with heightened sensitivity to stress.
Autonomic nervous system takes longer than normal to return to baseline.
Emotional Sensitivity / Vulnerability
An environment where an individual’s emotions and experiences are not acknowledged or validated and are sometimes punished or simply ignored.
Invalidating Environment
Difficulty in managing emotions, leading to emotional outbursts.
Emotional Dysregulation
Is a division of the nervous system that controls involuntary bodily functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, and body temperature.
Plays a crucial role in maintaining overall health and well-being.
Dysregulation of the ANS can contribute to various health problems, including anxiety, depression, and digestive disorders.
Automatic Nervous System (ANS)
What are the two main branches of the Automatic Nervous System (ANS)?
1) Sympathetic Nervous System - fight or flight
2) Parasympathetic Nervous System - rest and digest
It activates the body for action in response to stress or danger, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate, while also diverting blood flow from non-essential organs to the muscles.
Sympathetic Nervous System
It promotes relaxation and energy conservation, slowing heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and promoting digestion.
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Never learn to accurately label and understand one’s feelings.
Susceptible to extreme displays or emotions.
Chronic Emotion Dysregulation
A broad pervasive theme regarding oneself, and one’s relationship with others. It is developed throughout childhood and is celebrated throughout one’s lifetime. It is dysfunctional to a certain degree.
Schema (Dr. Jeffrey Young)
What is Schema Therapy a Combination of?
Cognitive Therapy
Behavioral Therapy
Object Relations
Gestalt Therapy
According to Dr. Young, what do all individuals strive towards?
Connection
Understanding
Growth
What are the Core Emotional Needs According to Schema Therapy?
1) Secure attachment
2) Autonomy, competence, and a sense of identity
3) Freedom of expression of invalid needs and emotions
4) Spontaneity and play
5) Limits and self-control
5 Domains of Maladaptive Schema
1) Disconnection & Rejection
2) Impaired Autonomy & Performance
3) Impaired Limits
4) Other-Directedness
5) Over-vigilance & Inhibition
An early, neglectful environment in which the core emotional needs of stability, understanding, and love are missing, that might foster toxic frustration of needs and the development of schemas.
Disconnection & Rejection
Maladaptive Schemas under Disconnection & Rejection
Mistrust/Abuse
Abandonment/Instability
Emotional Deprivation
Defectiveness/Shame
Social Isolation/Alienation
Might develop if a child is often over-protected and controlled, or neglected and ignored, left alone with no interest shown in their lives
Impaired Autonomy & Performance
If the early environment is too permissive and fails to meet a child’s need for limits and discipline
Impaired Limits
The main schema, such as the tendency to place other people’s needs, wishes, and desires before their own. I
Other-Directedness
Might develop if an environment is overly strict and rigid, that can inhibit a child’s need for play and spontaneity
Over-vigilance & Inhibition
Maladaptive Schemas under Impaired Limits
Entitlement
Insufficient
Self-control/Self-discipline
Maladaptive Schemas under Impaired Autonomy & Performance
Dependence/Incompetence
Vulnerability to Harm
Enmeshment
Failure
Maladaptive Schemas under Other-Directedness
Subjugation
Self-sacrifice
Approval Seeking/Recognition Seeking
Maladaptive Schemas under Over-vigilance & Inhibition
Negativity/Pessimism
Emotion Inhibition
Unrelenting Standards/Hypocriticalness
Punitiveness
What are examples of distorted cognitive processes to cope with schemas?
Surrender (self-sabotage)
Overcompensate
Opposite
A cluster of schemas that represents, moment to moment, the emotional and behavioural states of a person at any given time.
Mode
18 potential schemas that can contribute to psychological distress.
Early Maladaptive Schemas
The attempt to avoid or suppress unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or sensations.
Experiential Avoidance
Being overly focused on negative thoughts and beliefs.
Cognitive Entanglement
Adhering to rigid beliefs and behaviors, even when they are no longer helpful.
Inability to adapt to changing circumstances.
Psychological Rigidity
Key Features of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Increase psychological flexibility
- Acceptance of Suffering
- Mindfulness as a tool to manage difficult emotions and experiences
- Rather than fight against unhappiness, human beings ought to accept and change
What is the core concept of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
Psychological suffering is the thought caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and psychological rigidity that prevents us from taking behavioral steps in accordance with core values.
