Daniel
07-13-2009, 08:46 PM
This is one methodology that I have used as a result of having tinnitus: I've had to learn how to deal with my reactions to disturbing sounds. It's good stuff. (The other methodology is the practice of Tonglen- a Tibetan Buddhist meditative technique.)
Understanding the mechanism of how thoughts can effect us is key to understanding the person we are talking to, and not only that, but ourselves as well.
We all 'suffer' from something- that is- if we live long enough. I encourage you to post those methodologies and techniques- informal or not- spiritual and mundane- simple or complex- that have helped you.
May we all find and bring about the peace and joy that we seek!
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. What is it and how does it work.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a concept going back to the first century B.C. when the philosopher Epictetus (60-120 BC) said "men are disturbed not by things but the view they take of them". Later, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 BC) echoed the same concept. This reinforces the suggestion that few people come for therapy complaining about their thinking, but their self defeating thinking is more often than not their major problem. The major figure in CBT is Aaron Beck whose major work was published in 1976 (Aaron Beck 1976) making an immediate impact on psychological approaches. Beck gave the name "automatic thoughts" to the thoughts and images occurring involuntary in the stream of consciousness. If these thoughts are negative an emotional disorder might be the result. Danger or threat thought's might produce anxiety: if loss is the theme, depression might occur. The second major player regarding CBT is Albert Ellis who emphasised the role of irrational beliefs (Ellis.A.1977) in CBT in action. A simple example would be, "if I make a mistake, it proves I am useless". but this type of thinking can be dangerous if taken to the extreme because the person might then begin projecting and begin to constantly blame others to avoid blaming themselves. Ellis proposed the ABC model of irrational thinking. This model proposes that (A) an activating event leads to emotional consequences at ( C ), but with mediating beliefs at (B). A extremely simple example from (CBT in Action) is described below.
For example.
A = Activating event. -- A worker fails to acknowledge a colleague.
B= Beliefs. (a) infers = he must be angry with me, he now dislikes me.
(b) evaluation = I'ts awful if some one dislikes you.
C= Emotional result. ( c ) Depression.
Behavioural result = future avoidance of colleague.
But the activating event need not always be actual, it can be a memory, a thought about a future event or an emotion itself. This is often seen in CBT relating to panic disorders, which are often precipitated by the fear of fear. Fear can then result in palpitations, etc, or the fear of passing out or even of having a heart attack.
These are really simple examples that also show a self fulfilling prophecy nature caused by negative self defeating beliefs.
As Beck's term "automatic thinking" imply, negative thinking is often a habit and the client is usually only semi aware of its existence. Clients only become aware when they are upset or at stage C. Therefore the early process in CBT is to get the client aware of thoughts and feelings and how they trigger the more negative thoughts.
It can be seen from the above that CBT and all related behavioural therapies are grounded in the concepts put forward by the early works of Pavlov, Skinner and Watson with "Classical Conditioning" suggesting mere association learning was enough to illicit behaviour by "automatic thought". More recently Beck and Ellis refined and developed CBT. An example is "Rational Emotive Behavioural therapy", but its basic foundations remain the same. CBT it is probably seen as the most successful of the talking cures by many clinicians, but it is very doubtful that it could ever replace in depth psychoanalysis. This is mainly because the behavioural therapies tend to minimise the past (Margaret Hough. 1998), although Ellis did not regard the past as irrelevant in any way. Indeed he was trained in Freudian psychoanalysis but came to believe little progress could be made by dwelling on past events. The argument as to whether behavioural therapies are superior to drug treatment has been raging for the last two decades ever since the policy of closing the asylums and treating patients with newly discovered drugs was introduced (Peter Barham, 1992). To many this seemed to be a quick fix and a boon, a boon that soon became a nightmare.
It became clear that although the drugs retuned the transmitter balance that had been altered by maladapted and negative thoughts, they did not remove the primary cause. Consequently setbacks were many. In drug therapy very little is learned by the client, whereas with the talking therapies the client invariably learns a great deal about unconscious process that we are normally unaware of.
To conclude, although behavioural therapies such as CBT owe much to Thorndike and Skinner under the banner of behaviourism, their conclusions leave little room for free will and choice in their concept. Also they certainly rejected the Freudian idea of personality structure or other mental entities that might affect behaviour. Beck, Ellis, Maslow, Horney, Freud, Jung and many others have fortunately redressed this imbalance, removing us from the status of mere creatures reacting to external stimulus like automatons.
References.
Beck, A.T. (1976) Cognitive Therapy and emotional disorders. \new York: New American library.
Barham, P. (1992) Closing the Asylums. Penguin Books Ltd. London. New York. Victoria. Canada. New Zealand.
Ellis, A. (1977) The Basic Clinical Theory of rational Emotive therapy. In, Peter Trower, Andrew Casey, and Windy Dryden. Cognitive behavioural Counselling in Action.(1988). Sage publications. London. Thousand Oaks. New Delhi.
Hough, M. (1998) Counselling Skills and Theory. Hodder and Stoughton. London.
Understanding the mechanism of how thoughts can effect us is key to understanding the person we are talking to, and not only that, but ourselves as well.
We all 'suffer' from something- that is- if we live long enough. I encourage you to post those methodologies and techniques- informal or not- spiritual and mundane- simple or complex- that have helped you.
May we all find and bring about the peace and joy that we seek!
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. What is it and how does it work.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a concept going back to the first century B.C. when the philosopher Epictetus (60-120 BC) said "men are disturbed not by things but the view they take of them". Later, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 BC) echoed the same concept. This reinforces the suggestion that few people come for therapy complaining about their thinking, but their self defeating thinking is more often than not their major problem. The major figure in CBT is Aaron Beck whose major work was published in 1976 (Aaron Beck 1976) making an immediate impact on psychological approaches. Beck gave the name "automatic thoughts" to the thoughts and images occurring involuntary in the stream of consciousness. If these thoughts are negative an emotional disorder might be the result. Danger or threat thought's might produce anxiety: if loss is the theme, depression might occur. The second major player regarding CBT is Albert Ellis who emphasised the role of irrational beliefs (Ellis.A.1977) in CBT in action. A simple example would be, "if I make a mistake, it proves I am useless". but this type of thinking can be dangerous if taken to the extreme because the person might then begin projecting and begin to constantly blame others to avoid blaming themselves. Ellis proposed the ABC model of irrational thinking. This model proposes that (A) an activating event leads to emotional consequences at ( C ), but with mediating beliefs at (B). A extremely simple example from (CBT in Action) is described below.
For example.
A = Activating event. -- A worker fails to acknowledge a colleague.
B= Beliefs. (a) infers = he must be angry with me, he now dislikes me.
(b) evaluation = I'ts awful if some one dislikes you.
C= Emotional result. ( c ) Depression.
Behavioural result = future avoidance of colleague.
But the activating event need not always be actual, it can be a memory, a thought about a future event or an emotion itself. This is often seen in CBT relating to panic disorders, which are often precipitated by the fear of fear. Fear can then result in palpitations, etc, or the fear of passing out or even of having a heart attack.
These are really simple examples that also show a self fulfilling prophecy nature caused by negative self defeating beliefs.
As Beck's term "automatic thinking" imply, negative thinking is often a habit and the client is usually only semi aware of its existence. Clients only become aware when they are upset or at stage C. Therefore the early process in CBT is to get the client aware of thoughts and feelings and how they trigger the more negative thoughts.
It can be seen from the above that CBT and all related behavioural therapies are grounded in the concepts put forward by the early works of Pavlov, Skinner and Watson with "Classical Conditioning" suggesting mere association learning was enough to illicit behaviour by "automatic thought". More recently Beck and Ellis refined and developed CBT. An example is "Rational Emotive Behavioural therapy", but its basic foundations remain the same. CBT it is probably seen as the most successful of the talking cures by many clinicians, but it is very doubtful that it could ever replace in depth psychoanalysis. This is mainly because the behavioural therapies tend to minimise the past (Margaret Hough. 1998), although Ellis did not regard the past as irrelevant in any way. Indeed he was trained in Freudian psychoanalysis but came to believe little progress could be made by dwelling on past events. The argument as to whether behavioural therapies are superior to drug treatment has been raging for the last two decades ever since the policy of closing the asylums and treating patients with newly discovered drugs was introduced (Peter Barham, 1992). To many this seemed to be a quick fix and a boon, a boon that soon became a nightmare.
It became clear that although the drugs retuned the transmitter balance that had been altered by maladapted and negative thoughts, they did not remove the primary cause. Consequently setbacks were many. In drug therapy very little is learned by the client, whereas with the talking therapies the client invariably learns a great deal about unconscious process that we are normally unaware of.
To conclude, although behavioural therapies such as CBT owe much to Thorndike and Skinner under the banner of behaviourism, their conclusions leave little room for free will and choice in their concept. Also they certainly rejected the Freudian idea of personality structure or other mental entities that might affect behaviour. Beck, Ellis, Maslow, Horney, Freud, Jung and many others have fortunately redressed this imbalance, removing us from the status of mere creatures reacting to external stimulus like automatons.
References.
Beck, A.T. (1976) Cognitive Therapy and emotional disorders. \new York: New American library.
Barham, P. (1992) Closing the Asylums. Penguin Books Ltd. London. New York. Victoria. Canada. New Zealand.
Ellis, A. (1977) The Basic Clinical Theory of rational Emotive therapy. In, Peter Trower, Andrew Casey, and Windy Dryden. Cognitive behavioural Counselling in Action.(1988). Sage publications. London. Thousand Oaks. New Delhi.
Hough, M. (1998) Counselling Skills and Theory. Hodder and Stoughton. London.