Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques Essay

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Techniques and interventions. There are many techniques that cognitive behavioral therapists use to promote change. Socratic questioning, role-playing, behavioral experiments, listing advantages and disadvantages of beliefs, problem-solving, decision-making skills, activity monitoring and scheduling, cognitive techniques, distraction and refocusing, and relaxation are some of the many techniques used in therapy (Beck, 2995). The techniques used in CBT encourage introspection and reflection on thoughts of core beliefs. Techniques are used to accomplish the following; uncover distorted and illogical thinking, reduce problems, restructure automatic thoughts, and teach the client how to be their own therapist (Beck, 1976). For many clients anxiety …show more content…

Clients can likewise come to trust that awful things transpire due to their nonsensical thoughts and emotions or begin to believe that because they have distorted thoughts they are an awful individual. CBT can also cause problems for severely anxious and depressed clients. For anxious clients, it could give them another thing to worry about, and could increase anxiety rather than alleviate it. CBT may keep depressed clients in low places for a long time and feel punitive because it is overly focused on the present whereas depressed individuals are often stuck in the past. CBT could also backfire when working with clients who have had significant trauma and are not at a point where they can handle talking about suppressed thoughts (Beck, 1979). In these circumstances, CBT would not be a helpful …show more content…

Because the focus of CBT is on positive thinking it may feel superficial to a lot of people because it minimizes the importance of the person’s history and only explores current problems. Often times CBT misses trauma or significant events that happened in childhood and often lead to underlying causes of mental health problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy attempts to help the client in as few sessions as possible; with the objective of teaching clients to take responsibility for their thoughts and emotions by becoming their own therapist (Beck,

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