Cognitive Behavior, Reality, and Feminist Therapies

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

(CBT)

Key Figures:

Albert Ellis

Aaron T. Beck

Judith S. Beck

CBT Goal:

The main goal of cognitive behavior therapy is to help clients form clear ideas of their thoughts, attitudes and expectations. People tend to attach false and distressing beliefs to the things and situations that cause problems and CBT helps people reveal and change these beliefs.

CBT Key Concepts:

• Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is the main concept used in CBT which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral disturbances with the goal of leading to a more fulfilling life. 
• Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which negative patterns of thought about the self and the world are challenged in order treat mood disorders.
• Behavior Therapy is the treatment of neurotic symptoms by training a patient’s reactions to stimuli.
• Multimodal Therapy is an approach which focuses on each modality, such as behavior, sensation, and interpersonal relationships.

CBT Techniques Used:

Cognitive Methods:

• Disputing irrational disbeliefs: therapists actively dispute clients irrational beliefs and teach them how to do this on their own.
• Doing cognitive homework: clients make lists of their problems, look for their absolutist beliefs, and dispute these beliefs. Homework is a way for clients to track down their "shoulds" and "musts" that are part of their internalized self-messages,
• Bibliotherapy: involves the reading of specific texts with the purpose of healing.
• Changing one's language: clients are taught that "musts", "oughts", and absolute "shoulds" can be replaced with preferences that employ new self-statements that help them think and behave differently.
• Psychoeducational methods: introduces clients to educational materials that educate them about their problems and how treatment will likely proceed.

Emotive Techniques:

• Rational emotive imagery: clients are asked to imagine themselves in a situation where they experience disturbing feelings and then shown how to train themselves to develop healthy emotions in place of disruptive ones.
• Using humor: which shows the absurdity of certain unhealthy ideas that clients maintain and teaches them laugh at their self-defeating ways of thinking.
• Role playing: to help clients work through unhealthy beliefs that are related to unpleasant feelings.
• Shame-attacking exercises: helps clients reduce shame and anxiety over behaving a certain way by increasing self-acceptance and mature responsibility.
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Reality Therapy

Key Figures:

William Glasser

Robert E. Wubbolding

Reality Therapy Goal:

To help clients assess current behaviors and determine if these behaviors are effective methods of obtaining needs, including achievement, power or inner control, freedom or independence, and fun.

Reality Therapy's Key Concepts:

The main emphasis is on the clients actions. If clients can change what they are doing,

they can change how they are thinking and feeling which will lead to

more successful methods of obtaining needs.

Reality Therapy Techniques:

Cycle of Counseling

• Creating the counseling environment: creating an environment that is caring, accepting, and non-coercive.
• Implementing behaviors that lead to change: helping clients see that their current behavior is not meeting their needs and that choosing other behaviors can get them closer to what they want.

WDEP System

• Wants: Exploring wants, needs, and perceptions
• Direction and Doing: help clients make more need satisfying choices
• Self-Evaluation: assists clients in evaluating their present behavior ant the direction it is taking them.
• Planning and Action: enables clients to gain effective control over their lives

  
  

  

Feminist Therapy

Key Figures:

Jean Baker Miller

Carol Zerbe Enns

Olivia M. Espin

Laura S. Brown

(from top left to bottom right)

Feminist Therapy Goal:

The overarching long-term goal is to empower clients. On an individual level, the goal is to help clients, females and males, recognize, claim, and embrace their personal power.

Feminist Therapy Key Concepts:

The key concepts of this therapy are to help clients:

• Become aware of their own gender-role socialization process.
• Identify their internalized messages and replace them with more self-enhancing beliefs.
• Understand how sexist and oppressive societal beliefs and practices influence them in negative ways.
• Acquire skills to bring about change in the environment.
• Restructure institutions to rid them of discriminatory practices.
• Develop a wide range of behaviors that are freely chosen.
• Evaluate the impact of social factors on their lives.
• Develop a sense of personal and social power.
• Recognize the power of relationships and connections.
• Trust their own experience and their intuition.