Essay On Counselling Individuals And Families

Cognitive behaviour therapy is a treatment approach that helps identify negative or unhelpful thoughts and nature patterns. CBT aims to identify and explore the emotional ways and thoughts affecting a person’s actions (Bowie et al., 2017). This essay aims to identify the principles, goals and techniques of CBT therapy and how this therapy can be used to treat depression. This essay will analyse the impact of using CBT for the treatment of depression issues and other mental health issues. 

 

The therapy needs to be tailored to personal needs; however, there are ten important principles identified by Judith Beck that underline CBT for all patients (Beck & Beck, 2013). Followings are the important principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 

 

 

CBT is grounded on an ever-evolving construction of patients’ complications and conceptualising each patient in individual cognitive terms. The current thinking patterns of the patient and identification of problematic behaviours are important in CBT; it also focuses on considering the patient’s life experience, childhood experience and experience through the therapy sessions to recognise the issues.  A good and sound therapeutic alliance is important to build a strong, trusting relationship between patient and therapist. Creating a therapeutic alliance helps a therapist provide effective care, empathy and competence (Calloway & Creed, 2021). 

 

 

Collaboration and active participation- teamwork with collaboration and active participation help in decision-making throughout the sessions. Patient taking an active part in decision-making and other activities is significant for making a lifelong impact on their treatment. It is goal-orientation and problem-focused. CBT therapist analyse the issues and sets a goal for a specific period to meet the expected recovery outcomes (Friedl et al., 2019).

 

 

Focus on the present- the treatment session collects information from experience but focuses on the present issues and challenges to communicate effective outcomes. Educate patients about concerns for their health. CBT focuses on providing complete education and information about the process and how their emotions and behaviours are influenced by their thoughts (Gautam et al., 2020). 

 

 

Need to be time-limited, focusing on finishing sessions in pre-decided months or years. Structured sessions are helpful in maximising the efficiency of the treatment. It includes the introduction phase, middle phase and final stage. CBT communicates with patients to recognise, appraise and respond to their dysfunctional views and opinions. CBT uses various techniques to change thinking, mood and behaviour, along with problem-solving techniques (Oliver et al., 2016). 

 

CBT aims to support and assist patients in reducing mental and emotional health issues. It promotes emotional intelligence and self-awareness by guiding people to recognise positive and negative emotions.  To help clients understand how distorted thoughts and perceptions contribute to unpleasant sensations (Oliver et al., 2016). Rapid relief of symptoms focused on assessing the client's current situation and resolving existing problems.  Improve self-control by teaching clients how to identify and refute the wrong idea.  By helping clients change the basic beliefs that often underlie their suffering, counsellors can prevent future episodes of emotional distress and facilitate personal progress (Maric et al., 2015).

 

CBT is a cutting-edge treatment that works on anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. Cognitive behavioural therapy has many techniques to alter self-defeating thoughts, devastating emotions, and unsuccessful behaviour. Following are some important techniques important for cognitive behaviour therapy (Zagorski, 2019). 

 

 

Cognitive reconstructing- The goal of cognitive reconstructing, also known as a cognitive reassessment, is to build a more rational and informed way of understanding difficult situations while learning to identify dysfunctional thinking processes. Cognitive restructuring is a collection of different approaches to improving thinking rather than a methodology. Tracking thoughts in difficult situations, identifying cognitive biases, and running behavioural tests to check the accuracy of thoughts are some examples of cognitive restructuring strategies (Oliver et al., 2016).

 

 

Graded exposure assignments- this technique helps people systematically approach their fear. Normally people avoid situations of fear and anxiety, and this avoidance of feared situations maintains feelings of fear and anxiety. People conquer their fears one at a time through methodical exposure before taking on more challenging tasks. One of the most successful psychological therapies is exposure, which has a 90% success rate in treating some anxiety problems (Maric et al., 2015).

 

 

Activity scheduling- this technique is designed to help patients increase activities they should be doing more. It identifies and schedules helpful behaviours, for instance, activities of their interest that increase the probability of getting things done. 

 

 

Successive approximation- this technique helps people who face difficulty completing a task. Incomplete tasks can be due to many reasons such as lack of familiarity with tasks, feeling overwhelmed by the situation, and inability due to lack of interest (Gautam et al., 2020). 

 

 

Mindfulness practice- this technique is borrowed from Buddhism, and its goal is to help people to use their positive outlook. The purpose of mindfulness is to assist individuals in shifting their focus from worrying or obsessing over unpleasant things to what is truly occurring.

 

One of the most powerfully scientifically supported psychological procedures is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). It is used to treat various psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, somatic disorders, and substance use disorders. Recently, applications have been extended to behavioural medicine, marital conflicts, difficult living conditions, and many other therapeutic illnesses. However, patients with severe personality disorders such as the following antisocial personality disorder and denormalised IQ are difficult to manage with CBT (Gautam et al., 2020). There are no clear contraindications to CBT for depression. Treating these clients may require special knowledge and training. Before considering CBT, patients with major depression, psychosis, and suicidal tendencies may require medication or other treatment because CBT alone is difficult to control. If necessary, organic matter should be eliminated by clinical evaluation and appropriate diagnosis (Friedl et al., 2019).

 

Based on the above analysis and discussion, this essay concludes that Cognitive behavioural therapy is a communication therapy used to treat different kinds of depressive disorders in people of all ages. The therapy uses effective techniques to reduce patients' mental and emotional health issues such as anxiety, depression and other psychiatric disorders. According to this essay, a CBT must follow certain basic principles such as detailed diagnostic, patient consent and communication and goal-oriented therapy session that uses different techniques to reduce help patient get rid of depression, anxiety or another kind of psychiatric disorders.

 

Beck, J., & Beck, J. (2013). Cognitive therapy. Guilford Press.

 

 

Bowie, C., Gupta, M., Grossman, M., Best, M., & Holshausen, K. (2017). 215. Action-Based Cognitive Remediation: Pairing Cognitive Training With Skill Development and CBT Principles. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 43(suppl_1), S109-S109. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbx021.293

 

 

Calloway, A., & Creed, T. (2021). Enhancing CBT Consultation With Multicultural Counseling Principles. Cognitive And Behavioral Practice. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpra.2021.05.007

 

 

Friedl, N., Berger, T., Krieger, T., Caspar, F., & Grosse Holtforth, M. (2019). Using the Personalized Advantage Index for individual treatment allocation to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or a CBT with integrated exposure and emotion-focused elements (CBT-EE). Psychotherapy Research, 30(6), 763-775. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2019.1664782

 

 

Gautam, M., Tripathi, A., Deshmukh, D., & Gaur, M. (2020). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression. Indian Journal Of Psychiatry, 62(8), 223. https://doi.org/10.4103/psychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_772_19

 

 

Maric, M., van Steensel, F., & Bögels, S. (2015). Parental Involvement in CBT for Anxiety-Disordered Youth Revisited: Family CBT Outperforms Child CBT in the Long Term for Children With Comorbid ADHD Symptoms. Journal Of Attention Disorders, 22(5), 506-514. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054715573991

 

 

Oliver, S., Fisher, K., & Childs, S. (2016). What psychological and physical changes predict patients’ attainment of personally meaningful goals six months following a CBT based pain management intervention?. Disability And Rehabilitation, 39(22), 2308-2314. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2016.1226415

 

 

Zagorski, N. (2019). Different CBT Formats Shown to Be as Effective as Individual CBT. Psychiatric News, 54(11). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.5b21