What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

Cognitive is the way in which we filter and process information structurally in our brains. What we can do about it if we have filtered in an unhealthy way, and what we can do if we believe things are true when they are not true. Behaviourism is the way in which people can be conditioned to behave in a certain way over time. 

Classical Conditioning 

Pavlov and classical conditioning. Russian physiologist who grew up in a monastery. He was supposed to become a priest, but later in the 1860’s science became very popular and Pavlov interest peaked. 

A very famous theory of his was Pavlov’s classical conditioning of dogs. He defined the unconditioned stimuli of dog food, created an unconditioned response of salivation in the dog. Pavlov noticed however that the dogs started to salivate at the sound of the dog handler’s footstep. He hypothesised that any event associated with the food triggered salivation in the dog, eventually this would be independent of the food being present or not. Naturally there should not be any correlation between salivation and footsteps, but the two stimuli would become linked together to produce a new response. 

An example of human classical conditioning can be seen in advertising. For example, perfume adverts associate their perfume with sex, which is a powerful appeal to most humans. So, after seeing the advert multiple times you will start to associate that perfume with sex. 

Skinner thought that he could explain all of human behaviour through classic conditioning. All learning happens through conditioned learning of the environment. 

Operant Conditioning

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, who worked a lot with behaviour. He is possibly most known for his Skinner box and operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning is when you associate a behaviour with a reward, or reduction in negative existing stimuli. There are two types; positive and negative. 

Positive 

Skinner created a box in which to carry out his experiments. A mouse was placed in cage with a lever. At first the use of the lever was random as the mouse walked around and accidentally touch it. But whenever the lever was pressed a little pellet of food would be released – a positive reinforcement. An example of this can be seen in sticker charts for children, i.e. if they make their bed they get a sticker.  

Negative 

He created another box in which the cage was electrified, which shocked the mouse continuously. Now when the lever was pressed the electricity was turned off and therefore the mouse was no longer receiving the electric shock. The lever made a bad environment better. An example of this could be seen for teenagers, specifically teenagers earning their freedom. Once they have proved responsible with a little bit of freedom given by their carers’, they might be offered more.  

Cognitive therapy 

Aaron Beck born in 1921 in Rhode Island. Beck believed that if he could help patients stop thinking negatively then he could treat the symptoms of those thoughts.

CBT is how you think about yourself, the world and other people. Unlike some of the other talking therapies it focuses on the ‘here and now’ problems and difficulties. Instead of looking at the causes of the distress of symptoms in the past, for ways to improve the state of mind. It is not easy to change behaviour without changing the way we think about it. CBT assists you in making sense of overwhelming problems. CBT focusses on a situation, a problem, event or difficult situation.

The cognitive triad is a view of depression and how negative thoughts become automatic. Negative view of self (I’m stupid), negative view of world (people think I’m stupid), negative view of the future (This will never change). This triad was present in a person’s belief system with depression. 

Negative self-schema 

Beck claimed that negative schemas developed during childhood – a negative schema could be from a traumatic experience such as bullying. E.g. if your mother would constantly bring up that she thought you were useless then eventually you would believe that. They make up the core of what we believe – even if they are untrue. 

Beck defined Illogical thinking and negative thoughts and feelings as cognitive distortions for example arbitrary interpretation. Which is the belief that any negative view you have of yourself you believe others think the same.

REBT 

When Albert Ellis was growing up, he was very shy, especially around females. So, he challenged himself to speak to 100 women in his local park, in a certain length of time. He theorised that before the 100th women the repetition would help him overcome his fear. And it worked. He realised as a result of that challenging negativity, fear, psychological beliefs about self, and following through on such challenges could have a positive effect. 

He therefore came up with rational emotive behaviour therapy. He came up with the ABCDE model.

A – an activating event. Something happened. 

B – belief that you have about the activating event. 

C – consequences of having such a belief. 

Now it is important to understand that the problem is not the activating event. It is the belief that you have about the activating event that you generated. And the consequences of holding that belief which are the problem. The trick comes in the next two parts of the model. 

D- disputing, you will have to work on disputing the belief that you felt.

E – effects of having successfully disputing the beliefs 

Therefore, you will have a new belief about the activating event and therefore consequences. 

An example of this whole process could be seen in an activating event such as failing an exam. This could trigger the belief that you are not good enough, or smart enough to understand the subject. The consequence of this might be that you then stop studying or going to class. If you can effectively dispute the beliefs that you drew beforehand and realise that one failed exam doesn’t mean you cannot do the entire course, looking at evidence which supports that, ie. Coursework marks. Then you can change the consequences – your consequences might now be to dedicate more time to your studies in that area.