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What Is Cognitive Therapy?
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a relatively short-term, focused
psychotherapy for a wide range of psychological problems
including depression, anxiety, anger, marital conflict, loneliness,
panic, fears, eating disorders, substance abuse, alcohol abuse
and dependence and personality problems. The focus of therapy is
on how you are thinking, behaving, and communicating today rather
than on your early childhood experiences. The therapist assists the
patient in identifying specific distortions (using cognitive
assessment) and biases in thinking and provides guidance on how
to change this thinking.
Cognitive therapy helps the patient learn effective self-help skills that
are used in homework assignments that help you change the way
you think, feel and behave now. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is
action-oriented, practical, rational, and helps the patient gain
independence and effectiveness in dealing with real-life issues.
Many people wonder what to expect when they begin therapy.
Although your individual experience will vary depending on the
problems and goals that you have, many patients can expect the
following:
Initial Assessment | Reading Material | Periodic
Assessment | Plan of Treatment | Self-Help | Agendasetting | Aren't my emotions important? | Isn't Medication
Important? | Why Cognitive Therapy? | What about Group
Therapy? | Learn More about CBT
Initial Assessment: You will be asked to complete a number of selfreport forms. These forms assess your presenting problem and your
history of problems. These standardized questionnaires assess
depression, anxiety, emotions, decision making, personality,
relationship issues, substance abuse, and other problems. After your
therapist has reviewed these forms you can work together to
determine what areas need work and what your "symptom level" is
prior to treatment. In this way, you can also assess whether you are
making progress.
Reading Material: You and your therapist can decide together what
additional reading material can help you understand your problem.
This website is an excellent source of information on a great number
of issues---so you should take some time and examine the content of
our extensive readings on this website. We also have books available
for purchase and other reading material on a number of problems.
We will try to suggest readings that reflect scientifically based
approaches to depression, anxiety, relationship issues and other
problems.
Periodic Assessments: Periodically your therapist may have you fill
out additional forms in the course of treatment to see what is
changing and what still needs to change. This allows you and your
therapist the opportunity to see what is really going on. You can learn
if your depression, anxiety or emotional responses are changing. You
may also want to set some goals for your behavior---for example,
projects that you want to get done or things that you are
procrastinating on.
Plan of Treatment: You and your therapist can work together to set
up a problem list or goals that you want to work on. These problems
might include procrastination, self-esteem, sadness, inactivity,
anxiety, relationship conflicts, or any problems that you think you
need help with. Over the course of treatment you and your therapist
can devise plans and techniques to address these problems.
Self-Help: A great deal of research shows that patients who actively
do self-help homework are more likely to improve and maintain their
improvement. You and your therapist can develop techniques and
interventions that you can practice outside of therapy sessions to help
you feel more effective in handling your emotions, negative thoughts,
relationships and behavioral problems. Self-help builds a sense of
self-effectiveness.
Agenda-setting: Although you and your therapist will want to be
open to dealing with your immediate concerns as they arise in the
session, we recommend that you come to each session with one or
two issues that you want to address for that meeting. In addition to
your topics, you and your therapist will want to review your feelings
about the last session, any self-help you used, and your plans for the
coming week, including additonal self-help.
Aren't my emotions important? Our group uses the latest work on
emotional processing to enhance the humane nature of your
experience. We emphasize the importance of compassion and
validation in therapy and encourage you to direct compassion and
validation toward yourself when you are feeling down. In addition, our
approach emphasizes how you think and deal with your emotions.
For example, we will examine if you feel ashamed or confused about
the way you feel. We will also examine your beliefs that your
emotions are out of control or dangerous. In fact, our view is that your
emotions are the central part of your experience and they often
contain information about what you need. Your therapist can help
tailor your therapy to help you understand and respect your emotional
experiences--without feeling overwhelmed by that experience.
Isn't Medication Important? Medication can often help you get a
better handle on your problems. Therefore, you will want to consider
medication as part of your treatment. Not all patients need to take
medication---in fact, for depression and anxiety, many people get
better without medication. However, it may be a valuable additional
tool that you can use. We can provide you with referrals to leading
psychopharmacologists in the area for a medication consultation.
Some patients---for example, those with bipolar disorder or
schizophrenia--- should take medication as an essential part of their
overall treatment program.
Why Cognitive Therapy? As you know, there are many kinds of
therapy that are available. Our group focuses on a wide range of
different kinds of cognitive and behavioral therapies---in order to find
the treatment best suited for you. The exciting thing about cognitivebehavioral therapy is that it actually works. This conclusion is based
on a great deal of scientific research. Numerous outcome studies
show that cognitive therapy is as or more effective than medication in
the treatment of depression, anxiety, obsessions, and other fears
and does not have the negative side-effects of medications.
Furthermore, it is often superior to other treatments in preventing
relapse because patients learn self-help in therapy. Many patients
choose to combine cognitive-behavioral therapy with medication.
Cognitive therapy is the most widely tested form of psychotherapy for
depression and the anxiety disorders. Recent research shows that
cognitive therapy can also be used with medication for patients with
bipolar disorder (manic depression) and schizophrenia.
AICT NYC – What is Cognitive Therapy May 16, 2007