need one orginal post and 1 respond
Initial Post:CBT is rising in popularity among clinicians and the approach has expanded greatly.What do you think accounts for the fact that CBT has this place in the field of psychotherapy?Explain your ideas.Be sure to connect your response to something you learned in Chapter 10.To clearly illustrate that connection, your response must contain the page number from the textbook in order to earn full credit.
plus 1 respond to classmate
I think the rising popularity of CBT among clinicians and the expansion of this approach is due to a number of reasons. I think that the “present-centered, time-limited focus” (10-1) is conducive to a system wherein insurance coverage will not provide for a lengthy therapeutic process. The managed care we are becoming more used to in today’s system can provide a sense of urgency and need for direction which the less constricted systems of the past did not have. In this environment, an “active and directive stance by the therapist” along with “an educational treatment focusing on specific and targeted problems” (10-1) can seem more necessary than in the past, given the constraints mental health professionals have to come up with a specific diagnosis and work to provide evidence that they have been success in alleviating the severity of symptoms of this diagnosis. While I find that there can be benefits to this emphasis on psychoeducation, clear-cut goals, and therapeutic direction, I think that the overly empirically- and medically-based direction which managed care can push therapists toward can be harmful as well. We are not only strict scientists or technicians, but there is also a sense of art, creativity, and aspects which are not always quantifiable.
In addition to the influence of the managed care system, I think that the various orientations which fall under the umbrella of CBT have their many merits which can make them useful for many different clients. For instance, the fact that “both cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapies are based on a structured psychoeducational model, make use of homework, [and] place responsibility on the client to assume an active role both during and outside therapy sessions” (10-1) all make this approach enticing for therapists and clients alike. I think this is true regardless of the orientation a therapist claims as their primary one, in that they can also incorporate the psychoeducational aspects along with CBT homework assignments like thought records, even if they do not consider themselves a CBT therapist. It is also an approach which is dynamic in that it examines how the various facets interact with one another to inform our situation. REBT, for example, “is based on the assumption that cognitions, emotions, and behaviors interact significantly and have a reciprocal cause-and-effect relationship” (10-2a). Rather than singling out one aspect of our experience, such as our brain chemistry, behavior, thoughts, or environment, the CBT approaches look at the interplay between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a non-reductionistic way. The holistic approach emphasized by CBT is useful in that multiple modes of our experience are looked at to see how they inform one another. Additionally, surface cognitions are connected to one’s deeper conditional and core beliefs so that there are multiple levels to each aspect of our experience. The therapist does not only address the surface beliefs or interpretations, but eventually, though a close therapeutic relationship identifies which core beliefs these have developed from, and what occurred in their development to inspire certain maladaptive yet consistent underlying beliefs.
I really like this approach and find much truth in the idea that certain surface ideas are informed by more deep-seated ones. I also like the way in which the CBT approaches have research to back up their effectiveness (another reason for their widespread acceptance). In my practicum work I have incorporated many CBT homework assignments with different clients, such as thought records and cost/benefit charts. I think that there is something useful for any therapist in the CBT approach, even if they do not adopt all aspects of it into their therapy.
