Psychodynamic Theory And Cognitive Behavioral Theory

Cognitive is defined as a mental process; it refers to everything going on in your mind including your thought processes and the way you are thinking and feeling. Behavior refers to everything that you may do; this includes any action that you may present or act out, this can also be an indirect action that is caused by other underlying behaviors. Therapy is a systematic approach to try and resolve a problem, illness, actions, irregular thought patterns or anything that may be a disturbance that distracts you from your everyday functioning. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (cognitive behavioral theory) is a dynamic model of holistic intervention that seeks to change thought processes that are linked with emotions through a goal-orientated process

This theory is also used to explore the inner self and understand what may be going on inside, it tends to look for the psychological explanations of individuals, family and societal problems and to focus on what the individual is going through. Psychodynamic theory assumes that the problems and dysfunctions that an individual may be experiencing could originate back in childhood. This is also known as one of the 'onion peeling' theories because it is a theory that allows an individual to strip down the layers of their psychological self to deepen an individual’s understanding of themselves (Connolly and Healy,

This fits with the purpose of social work as both are task-centered with a holistic approach. You work together with your client in an alliance towards social change, to help the client help themselves. Psychodynamic theory supports the purpose of social work as social workers can easily adapt this theory to the individual needs of their client and view their client in their own situational and environmental context to get a better understanding. As there are strengths to this theory, there are some weaknesses also. There is criticism that cognitive behavioral theory only works towards changing your negative thought processes into positives it ignores the fact that there may be an underlying issue that has caused this behavior in the first place which may date back to your childhood. cognitive behavioral theory will not uncover and work on this issue it is only there to change the way you think about it. Another criticism of cognitive behavioral theory is that as it is a task-centered approach this means that clients have to want to participate and has to want to help themselves. A client that is not compliant with changing their thought patterns will not benefit