Mental Health - Cognitive Therapy

This week we learned about Cognitive Therapy. Cognitive therapy does not deal with the unconscious mind. Rather, it deals with automatic responses to core beliefs. Typically, a client will believe that they are unable to change a core belief -- which can be true. The goal is not to change a core belief, but the attitude about the appropriate response. The goal of the clinician is to be an "active agent," or someone who helps alter pattens in the client's life.

I found that it was difficult to help convince people of alternate routes to take. It seems like there are people in this world who simply want to wallow in their own self-destructive behavior. I am a strong believer of the idea that people can only change if they want to change. That's what can make a therapist's job so successful is that a lot of times people who see them have some hope of change. In Theo's case, while he attended the therapy session for his girlfriend, he at least had some motivation for wanting to change for himself.

Not everyone has that same motivation. It can be difficult to see people engage in destructive behavior and enjoy it. I could see cognitive therapy being helpful for people who are sincerely interested in changing their patterns. For those that are not, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) may be more up their alley. Self-defeating ideas are a key aspect of REBT. The idea of REBT is to help people move from irrational thoughts to rational ones.

These types of thoughts, like in the case of Elena, can include ideas like "I can't do it," "I'm never going to do anything or go anywhere," "it was like she didn't care or didn't listen," or "If I make the wrong decision, I will regret it forever." While REBT also includes finding patterns and helping to change them, I think it might be more successful with people who reject change on their own. This is because I think that when people are presented with their own words, they generally realize how irrational they sound. By acknowledging the irrational thoughts, I believe it could motivate people to see there is a need for change.

While I was not presented with a great opportunity to utilize some of these therapies alone, I did attempt to integrate the ideas when I talked with various people. With one of my friends, I asked them how much time they thought they spent worrying. When I was told that they didn't know, I asked them to keep track of how much and get back to me. I am hoping to receive a response so that I can see if they might be willing to limit that amount to 1/2 to 1 hour if it goes over (which it likely will). This is a technique that will help them to gain control over their worrying and hopefully put those thoughts into perspective.