Cognitive Therapy & CBT
Cognitive therapy (or cognitive behavioural therapy) helps the client to uncover and alter distortions of thought or perceptions which may be causing or prolonging psychological distress.
Articles and reviews in the Cognitive Therapy and CBT section draw on approaches broadly understood as cognitive or cognitive behavioural in origin, including rational emotive therapy and other related schools of thought.
Cognitive therapy (or cognitive behavioural therapy) helps the client to uncover and alter distortions of thought or perceptions which may be causing or prolonging psychological distress.
This book is important reading, as it competently deals with the treatment of a major health issue which is both prevalent and chronic, with strong co-morbidity. While the tone didn’t particularly engage me, I did finish the book with some insights and solid understanding.
Despite clear evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy, pinning down specific reasons for effectiveness or identifying particularly effective approaches remains tricky. (NOTE: The review of Hubble, et al 1999 includes a great deal of additional information on the topic of effectiveness in therapy.)
The basic conceptualisation of human experience offered by this book is that distress arises from our relationship with our own internal experience. The remedy goes beyond (and could be seen as contrary to) the traditional cognitive therapy approach of disentangling the client from the thoughts, questioning them and replacing them with more realistic and helpful ones.
Rational emotive behaviour therapy focuses on uncovering irrational beliefs which may lead to unhealthy negative emotions and replacing them with more productive rational alternatives.
Aimed at practising cognitive behavioural therapists, ‘Cognitive Behaviour Therapy’ offers eleven chapters of the newest developments in applying CBT to work with particular client populations.
Anxiety self-help manuals based on CBT are almost a genre unto themselves, but this is the first such book to bear the name of the field’s creator, Aaron T. Beck, as co-author. Designed as a companion volume for Clark and Beck’s definitive 2009 textbook Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders: Science and Practice, The Anxiety & Worry Workbook also stands exceptionally well on its own.
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