Theory of Counseling selected
The selected theory is cognitive behavioral therapy used in psychological treatments to deal with problems such as depression, drug abuse problems, anxiety, PTSD disorders, mental illness, and eating conditions (Carpenter et al., 2018). The identification is that CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is a psychological therapy remedy that improves individuals’ health and everyday functionality.
Name of the key proponents/developers of the theory
One of the key proponents of CBT involves the use of anxiety-based mental conditions. The anxiety-based technique helps to boost an individual’s catastrophic predictions of the planned activity. For instance, an individual can predict an imminent danger or terrible actions due to the current choice. Besides, the anxiety-based approach improves the patients’ learning ways in which they can tolerate anxiety occurrence. The anxiety-based therapy technique allows a patient to learn to predict anxiety catastrophes, leading to improvising or re-evaluating each task decision to avoid anxiety provocation. The anxiety tolerance approach among patients involves help from a therapist on how to deal with the lowest to the highest provoking anxiety tasks.
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Besides, the CBT approach helps patients learn to gather helpful information on attaining safety behaviors instead of avoidance. Safety behavior avoidance contributes to increased anxiety-provoking due to the formation of impossible beliefs that can impact an individual’s life. An example of safety behavior includes avoidance of a particular neighborhood street due to crime prevalence. With CBT, an individual learns to predict time and causes of terrible events and safe time by gathering enough evidence, which results in the identification of safety choices that helps them to remain protected without constraints. Additionally, cognitive behavioral therapy uses progressive relaxation techniques among patients. Progressive relaxation technique leads to identifying exercises, activity or actions that help them reduce panic, anxiety, or fear aroused. The progressive relaxation techniques work well with multiple mental disorders, resulting in regaining the patient’s normal functioning.
What attracted me to this theory versus the other choices I had?
Cognitive behavior therapy is more effective compared to other therapy alternatives such as psychodynamic therapy. CBT treatment is superior to psychodynamic therapy due to the continued follow-up of a patient's treatment process. Additionally, CBT supersedes psychodynamic therapy due to post-treatment. Several studies on CBT patients compared to other therapies identifies CBT to be superior and highly rated. The highest CBT ratings over other therapies resulted from patients who experienced anxiety and depression disorder. Several therapists identify CBT as more effective than other psychological medications or therapy treatments. CBT needs to be the first therapy treatment option for most patients suffering from depression and anxiety disorders due to the continued superiority. CBT therapy sessions are short, almost 20 times, unlike psychodynamic therapy sessions (David, Cristea & Hofmann, 2018).
CBT focuses on goals between the therapist and the patient both in therapy sessions and at home; it comprises follow-ups of the patient's response to the therapy sessions, resulting in empowering the patient. For instance, the therapist and the patient work together to identify practical tasks to incorporate anxiety tolerance. The psychodynamic therapy is more prolonged and less structured, resulting in challenges in the patient's coping with the longtime commitment. Besides, therapists rely on psychodynamics' theoretical perspectives, which results in difficulties in measuring effectiveness and prove of patient's improvement.
The theory’s view of human nature
The cognitive-behavioral therapy’s inventor Albert Ellis viewed humans to possess a dual nature condition. By dual nature, Ellis focuses on the positive or negative cognitive behavior, which therapists understand better during the CBT treatment sessions. Human cognitive behaviors result in the therapeutic guide of human believes and thoughts. Human thoughts and believes results to the formation of individual’s psychosocial distortions such as increased anxiety or depressions.
The CBT theorist identifies that individuals start to experience cases of depression when they focus more on the negative principles in thoughts or beliefs. For instance, several anxieties or depression individuals begin to hate on themselves. Statements such as “I am worthless in our family, or I believe that my future will be of misery.” Once the plague of negative beliefs, thoughts, or labeling occupies someone’s mind, the individual starts to experience mixed feelings or increased self-doubt. Overall, CBT’s perception of human nature and its influences on human life leads to understanding the way people act or behave socially (Taylor et al., 2017).
Therapeutic goals of the theory
The primary focus of cognitive behavioral therapy involves the reformation of an individual's negative beliefs, thoughts, or labeling using their behavior to identify an effective congruence alternative. The CBT therapists work in handy with the clients throughout the therapy session. Both formulate tasks during the therapy sessions and while at home, which the therapist analyses keenly to identify the client's interventions towards the existing anxiety and depression catastrophes. The therapist researches with the client to identify some of the causal factors leading to their disorder occurrences. Together with the client, the therapist identifies tasks to undertake to achieve safety avoidance instead of avoiding due to strict beliefs or rules that contribute to increased anxiety (Hinton & Patel, 2017). Some of the commonly initiated tasks include relaxation, which cools down an individual's anxiety.
The CBT session's goal focuses on objectives such as becoming comfortable. A therapist works with an anxiety and depression patient towards attaining comfort in socializing with other individuals comfortably, learn to form friends, including intimate friendship, and learn to speak freely while in public. Overall, CBT goals focus on each individual's unique needs. The whole CBT therapy session focuses to reduced stress to the patient. They comprise unique characteristics such as being short to prevent boredom. Also, the therapy sessions follow-ups to identify if the client is on the safe side.
Therapist’s function and role in the counseling situation
Therapists of CBT works closely with their clients to identify individual beliefs and behaviors that lead to anxiety or depression disorders. The primary role includes conversing near with the client in creating therapy sessions’ goals which allows review of every therapy session to identify whether to proceed with the session due to promising results or identify alternative goals to improve the approaches of dealing with anxiety or depression belief or labeling. CBT therapists working together with the patients’ results to reform a patient’s everyday life, such as regaining their life track, start to practice healthier behavioral approaches. CBT treatment involves identifying progressive methods by the therapist and the patient, which results in many patients escaping from negative thoughts, behaviors, and thoughts.
Summarily, therapists of the CBT approach teach patients’ relaxation and mindfulness practices whenever they encounter adverse incidents to reduce stress levels. Therapists give their patients journals, mind exercises, and reading tasks to improve their capacity. A CBT therapist creates treatment plans to monitor through paperwork to identify if the sessions go in handy with the CBT goals. Therapists coach their clients through exposure sessions which leads to empowering individuals to encounter their fear.
Believe of theory’s developer and therapy anitipation
The highly expected experience in cognitive behavioral therapy by patients includes a face-to-face conversation with a therapist. Therapists discuss closely with their patients to identify their current life experiences in terms of beliefs and thoughts, which allows a therapist to determine a retrospective baseline which enables the identification of detrimental factors that contributes to the increased levels of a patient’s anxiety, fear, and depression levels. A CBT session focuses on creating a friendly environment through shared roles in the treatment process between the therapists and their patients in identifying effective ways, measures, and suggestions that lead to identifying the best treatment practices for the therapy sessions and application outside therapy rooms (Button et al., 2019).
The CBT sessions should sum to around 20 sessions for a full recovery. CBT is a short therapy session that requires the patients’ total commitment to attaining quick recovery. The short nature of CBT results in individuals expecting to save time and costs incurred in long psychological therapies such as psychodynamic therapy sessions. Moreover, the CBT treatments need to attain improved patients’ focus on life goals with the help of their therapists. A patient needs to start identifying effective anxiety triggers avoidance by forecasting future incidents; for instance, a patient identifies the need to start chemotherapy to prevent cancer prevalence, contributing to their increased fear.
Three client problems or situations I believe would be appropriate for use with your selected theory of counseling Why do you believe the theory is appropriate for each of the problems, scenarios, or situations identified?
CBT is the best-approved treatment to deal with cases of depression among patients to its use of talk therapy sessions that allows patients to share their challenges. Several research reveals that individuals who undertake the CBT depression treatment have more advantages than other treatments, such as medication subject to similar risks after some time. CBT equips patients with multiple alternatives, exercise, and measures which help while dealing with depression scenarios (Stawarz et al., 2018). Furthermore, CBT helps clients suffering from anxiety problems. CBT sessions comprise relaxation exercises, which play a crucial role in anxiety reduction among individuals. The sessions train mindfulness approaches that result in improved techniques effectively in solving anxiety cases among individuals.
Additionally, CBT treatment works well with patients suffering from a fear disorder. CBT treatment focuses on empowering clients through working closely to accomplish therapy goals and tasks. In general, CBT focuses on an individual’s thoughts and feelings, leading to the formation of an individual’s behavior. Besides, the therapist-patient collaboration results in high improvement and effectiveness since both parties form a collaborative relationship free from fear by the patient resulting in sharing all the challenges faced by the client. CBT treatment leads to the understanding of effective anxiety, depression, and fear disorders treatment without the necessity of medication, which sometimes fails to fully the patient’s disorder challenges.
References
Button, M. L., Norouzian, N., Westra, H. A., Constantino, M. J., & Antony, M. M. (2019). Client reflections on confirmation and disconfirmation of expectations in cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder with and without motivational interviewing. Psychotherapy Research , 29 (6), 723-736.
Carpenter, J. K., Andrews, L. A., Witcraft, S. M., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A., & Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety and related disorders: A meta‐analysis of randomized placebo‐controlled trials. Depression and anxiety , 35 (6), 502-514.
David, D., Cristea, I., & Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Why cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard of psychotherapy. Frontiers in psychiatry , 9 , 4.
Hinton, D. E., & Patel, A. (2017). Cultural adaptations of cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychiatric Clinics , 40 (4), 701-714.
Stawarz, K., Preist, C., Tallon, D., Wiles, N., & Coyle, D. (2018). User experience of cognitive behavioral therapy apps for depression: an analysis of app functionality and user reviews. Journal of Medical Internet Research , 20 (6), e10120.
Taylor, C. T., Knapp, S. E., Bomyea, J. A., Ramsawh, H. J., Paulus, M. P., & Stein, M. B. (2017). What good are positive emotions for treatment? Trait positive emotionality predicts response to cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety. Behaviour research and therapy , 93 , 6-12.
