Assessment |
Biopsychology |
Comparative |
Cognitive |
Developmental |
Language |
Individual differences |
Personality |
Philosophy |
Social |
Methods |
Statistics |
Clinical |
Educational |
Industrial |
Professional items |
World psychology |
Clinical: Approaches · Group therapy · Techniques · Types of problem · Areas of specialism · Taxonomies · Therapeutic issues · Modes of delivery · Model translation project · Personal experiences ·
Cognitive therapy is a form of psychotherapy which aims to help people to change their *assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, cognitive biases, cognitive style, expectations, perceptions and thinking etc on the basis that these psychological and cognitive elements may cause, or maintain psychological problems and mental disorders. By changing erroneous patterns of thinking,and distorted perceptions of 'reality' it is assumed that people's behavior, thoughts and feelingswill become more appropriately adapted to their situation and they will enjoy improved mental health.
So, for example, a tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts can be associate with depression. By encouraging people to spend less time thinking in this way, and to adopt more positive beliefs about the world findings suggest their mood can be improved.
The distinction between cognitive therapy and cognitive behavior therapy is one of emphasis. In the later there is a more direct emphasis on behavior as a more objective measurable criteria for measuring change. Although in practice there is a large degree of overlap between the approaches.
Cognitive rehabilitation is the application of cognitive principles to help people therapeutically to overcome cognitive deficits due to brain damage, aging etc
Focus of cognitive therapy[]
The focus of cognitive therapy is on addressing the ssues that arise from:
- Arbitrary inference
- Cognitive distortion
- Cognitive bias such as Confirmation bias
- Overgeneralization
- Selective abstraction
Cognitive therapy approaches[]
There are a large number of therapy approaches that may come into this category. They include:
- Acceptance and commitment therapy - (ACT)
- Beck's cognitive therapy
- Cognitive analytic psychotherapy - (CAT)
- Cognitive processing therapy - (CPT)
- Cognitive Remediation Therapy - (CRT)
- Cognitive Retention Therapy - (CRT)
- Logic-Based Therapy
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
- Motivational Enhancement Therapy
- Philosophical counseling
- Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy - (REBT)
- Rational living therapy
Particular techniques[]
- Main article: Cognitive interventions
Sometimes it is hard to draw a distinction between a mature psychotherapy and particular techniques which may be used in a variety of approaches.The later include:
- Attentional retraining
- Autosuggestion
- Cognitive bias modification
- Cognitive restructuring
- Cognitive-shifting
- Decatastrophizing
- Empathic concern
- Emotional self-regulation
- Experiential avoidance
- Focus phrase
- Improving self control and self management
- Impulse control
- Motivational interviewing
- Motivational therapy
- Mental exercise
- Mindfulness
- Reality therapy
- Relapse prevention
- Self-regulation theory
- Socratic questioning
- Thought stopping
- Thought suppression
- Time management
Journals[]
Organizations[]
- Academy of Cognitive Therapy
- Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
- Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy
See also[]
- Cognitive rehabilitation therapy
- Emotionally focused therapy
- Hypnotherapy
- List of cognitive–behavioral therapies
- Multimodal therapy