Limitations Of Cognitive Therapy

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Cognitive-behavioural therapy, or as it is commonly referred throughout literature CBT is an integration of Ellis’ (1996) Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and Becks’ Cognitive Therapy (1976). CBT regards a variety of interventions that share the same basic assumption that mental disorders and psychological distress are sustained by cognitive factors. The central idea of this psychotherapy approach is that maladaptive cognitions contribute to the maintenance of emotional distress and consequently behavioural problems (Beck, 1970; Eliis, 1962). We, as humans, gather information in our brain in certain patterns or schemas that contain general knowledge about that world and the person themselves and these schemas are used to interpret, select and reduce …show more content…

Some scholars argue that approaches like Elli’s REBT dismiss past experiences and regard them as ineffective when in fact exploring past childhood experiences can have a great deal of therapeutic power if the discussion is connected to the present functioning (Gerald Corey, 2013) Another limitation of CBT regards the misuse of the therapist’s power by imposing ideas of what actually makes a rational cognition and since the therapist has a large amount of power in the therapeutic relationship, psychological harm is more possible in REBT than in less directive approaches. Cognitive Therapy has also been criticized for being too superficial and simplistic, denying the importance of the client’s past and working only on eliminating symptoms (Freeman & Dattilio, 1992; Weishaar, 1993) Moreover, another potential limitation that could be pointed out to any of the cognitive behavioural approaches is the therapist’s level of training and knowledge and although this could be applied to all therapeutic approaches it is particularly true for CBT practitioners because they tend to be active, offer psychoeducational information and teach valuable life

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