When a person suffers with psychological distress the way in which they interpret situations can become skewed, which in turn has a negative impact on the actions they take. He named these cognitions "automatic thoughts" because he believed that people were not necessarily aware that the cognitions existed, but that they could identify these types of thoughts when questioned closely. Beck believed that pushing his clients to identify these automatic thoughts was integral to overcoming a particular difficulty (Westbrook et al, 2007). Beck was later influenced by Ellis in his work around Behavioural Therapy and the idea that people can overcome psychological issues by altering the way they perceive an experience and in turn use this to change their attitude and behaviour towards experiences which enable the person to have positive feelings instead of negative. Becks studies found that patients’ automatic thoughts fell into three categories, the patients had negative ideas about themselves, the world and/or the future and these thoughts could lead to anxiety and depression.
Compare and contrast the existential and cognitive behavioural approaches to understanding and working with fear and sadness. Which one of these two approaches do you feel more drawn to and why. Whilst many people helped shape the early existential psychology movement, Victor Frankel 1905-1997 and Rollo May 1909-1994 are amongst the most renowned. Existential psychotherapy is a philosophical method of therapy that operates on the belief that inner conflict within a person is due to that individual's confrontation with the givens of existence. (Yalom 1980) Existential therapy operates on the belief that inner conflict within a person is due to that individual's perception and fear of the very process of existing and of the inevitability of death .
Systematic Desensitisation is based on the principle of Classical Conditioning and uses Counterconditioning. Classical Conditioning explains how previously neutral stimuli (such as spiders, snakes or buttons) can provoke anxiety in some people because they have become associated with a different even that we naturally find distressing. Counterconditioning involves reducing the conditioned response (such as anxiety or fear) by establishing the incompatible response (relaxation) to the same conditioned stimulus (snake or button). The procedure involves working through an anxiety hierarchy, a series of gradual steps that are determined at the beginning of therapy when the patient and therapist work out a hierarchy of feared stimuli. In this hierarchy, the patient is taught how to relax their body completely, as a relaxed state is incompatible with anxiety.
This type of therapy helps patients overcome phobias and self-destructive behavior. Techniques used are flooding, systematic esensitization, counter-conditioning, and modeling. Cognitive therapy focuses on changing ones thought pattern. This type of therapy goes under the assumption that thoughts precede moods that cause false self-believes, which led to negative emotions. Each of these therapies have helped many overcome his or hers psychological disorder.
These biases interrelate and tend to perpetuate someone's depression. He also suggested errors in logic could be a reason for someone to behave abnormally. This concerns the way in which someone sees an event in the past, present or future. Examples of irrational thinking that both Ellis and Beck proposed are catastrophizing (wildly exaggerating the negative aspects of an event), polarized thinking (seeing everything in extreme terms), and overgeneralization (drawing conclusions based on a single event). This approach is supported by Burt et al who asked participants to recall a list of words.
This theory starts from the idea that we seek consistency in our beliefs and attitudes in any situation where two cognitions are inconsistent. Leon Festinger proposed cognitive dissonance theory, which states that a powerful motive to maintain cognitive consistency can give rise to irrational and sometimes adaptive behavior. According to Festinger, we hold many cognitions about the world and ourselves; when they clash, a problem is , resulting in a state of tension known as cognitive dissonance. As the experience of dissonance is unpleasant, we are motivated to reduce or eliminate it, and achieve
The third stage is where the client uses the relaxation techniques they learned in stage one to calm themselves down. They are then faced with the first step of the anxiety hierarchy while trying to maintain a relaxed state. When they can do this, they systematically move to the second state and steadily continue in this way until they can relax in the face of their most feared situation. Achieving this may take a number of sessions. Desensitation is thought to occur because two opposing emotional states, such as panic and calmness cannot exist at the same time so, when emotions conflict, the
The Practice of Buddhism in the United States University of Phoenix REL/133 June 16, 2008 Buddhism in the United States Buddhism comes in many shapes, sizes and flavors, and a Buddhist can be found almost everywhere in the USA. In our study of Buddhism, Team C has learned that Buddha was not originally a Buddhist; he did not even consider himself a member of any religion, but just as one who traveled around sharing to those would listen to some important truths about life. Even the best known Buddha in the world today, the Dalai Lama, have advised that one does not have to change his or her religion to benefit from the teachings of the Buddhism (Deva, 2006). The Origin of Buddhism Buddhism is a way
Outline and Evaluate 2 Psychological Treatments of OCD One psychological treatment of OCD is Behavioral Therapy. According to the behavioral explanation of OCD, both obsessions and compulsions have been acquired through conditioning and therefore, in order to recover, patient must unlearn these behaviours. This can happen by Exposure and Response Prevention therapy. ERP therapy aims to provide opportunities for reconditioning and consists of two components. Firstly there is exposure, and in this element, the patient is repeatedly presented with the feared stimulus until anxiety subsides, known as habituation.
For the mental aspect the following is responsible for educating the individual to (Sue et al 1997:351); (1) Seek out cognitions which are pessimistic, as well as self-undermining, in manner. (2) Establish the connection that links such pessimistic views to depression. (3) Review all pessimistic cognitions and establish whether or not such thoughts have the ability of being aided. (4) Substitute pessimistic forms of thinking with an understanding of the scenario in a practical