Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs. Computer-Assisted Therapy

This essay provides a comparative analysis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Computer-Assisted Therapy (CAT). It begins by defining CBT as a psychotherapy developed by Aaron T. Beck, focusing on beliefs, attitudes, and thoughts to treat disorders like anxiety and depression, while CAT, developed by the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, uses computer programs to deliver psychological health services and build emotional resilience. The essay highlights CBT's focus on changing thinking patterns to address issues like substance abuse and anxiety, with therapists identifying cognitive errors through counseling sessions. Conversely, CAT utilizes programs on various devices to offer diverse therapies for psychological complexities, often at lower costs with greater consistency. The essay argues for the plausibility of CBT due to its ability to identify the root causes of psychological issues through face-to-face interactions and personalized sessions, unlike CAT, which focuses solely on the presenting issue. It references research supporting CBT's efficacy for anxiety disorders and couple therapy, as well as the use of CAT for patient assessment and sedation models. The essay concludes by emphasizing the benefits of CBT's holistic approach and its potential for long-term positive outcomes.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
Name of the Student:
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Author note:

1PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapy treatment that is developed
or created by Aaron T. Beck in the year 1960. Cognitive behavioural therapy is considered as
the talking therapy that focuses on the beliefs, attitudes and thoughts and is therefore used by
the patients who are suffering from different disorders such as phobias, anxiety and
depression. The therapist who is responsible for helping the patients are also accountable for
defending the concept of cognitive behavioural therapy (Stallard, 2019). On the other hand,
Computer-assisted therapy was developed by the Institute for Creative Technologies at the
University of Southern California. This therapy is used by the health therapist to deliver
various psychological health services and also develop the concept of emotional resilience
skills among the patient. The therapist who is handling the computer and assisting the patient
to solve their health related challenges are accountable for defending the computer-assisted
therapy (Andrews et al., 2018).
The primary goal of cognitive behavioural therapy is to change the thinking pattern or
behaviour of an individual that is responsible for their health difficulty and thereby assist the
patient in changing the way or perception of their thinking. This therapy helps the patient to
solve issues such as alcohol or drug abuse, depression, sleeping difficulties, relationship
issues and anxiety. Therapist are responsible for handling the patient and identifying the
cognitive errors that leads to behavioural dysfunction and hence this therapy offers health
improvement plan including the course of therapy for their treatment and betterment (Wright
et al., 2017). On the other hand, Computer-assisted therapy focus on treating patient suffering
from different psychiatry issues using computer programs. This program play a crucial role in
the mental healthcare where, cognitive-behavioural, systematic desensitization and psych-
education are the most modifiable program under CAT approaches. This programs offers
huge treatment options to the patient associated with low cost, consistency, privacy and easy
data collection method (Miller et al., 2016).

2PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is provided by the psychotherapist who will
forts identify the past of the patient and understand their concern and therefore focus on the
modifying the beliefs and thoughts of the patient in the current situation. The therapist will
provide counselling sessions to the patient where the will try to modify their perception and
distortions that is affecting their life. The counselling session or one-to-one interview session
that is provided under the cognitive behavioural therapy program, will help the patient to
acquire novel skills and problem-solving capabilities that will modify their thoughts and help
them to lead a healthy life (Meichenbaum, 2017). On the other hand, computer-assisted
therapy is delivered through the program which is present on the device of the patient that
includes laptops, personal computers, text messaging, personal digital assistance and
interactive telephone messaging. Through such interactive devices, the user can achieve high
level of connectivity with the program. Using this computer-assisted program, the user will
identify different therapies which will help them to solve the issue of psychological
complexities and assist them in achieving better health outcome (Garrido et al., 2017).
Cognitive behavioural therapy is more plausible as compared to computer-assisted
therapy because this therapy helps the practitioner to first locate the issue or triggering factor
that leads to the poor psychological health of the patient and based on their observation, the
practitioner will then provide the therapy or counselling (Andrews et al., 2018). This therapy
will result in a positive impact on the patient and help the patient to deal with various
challenges under any circumstances. Cognitive behavioural therapy focuses on different
aspect of an individual life, whereas, computer-assisted therapy does not focus on the
associated aspect but only concentrate on the issue that the patient is suffering. The social or
emotional challenges are also managed through the cognitive behavioural therapy, where the
counsellor will conduct different sessions and will personally address the issue of the patient
by meeting them regularly and collaborating with them (Baucom et al., 2019). In order to

3PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
treat the patient’s psychological illness, the therapist also adopt different techniques such as
homework assignments, behavioural change activities, role-playing activities and calming of
body and mind to help the patient in recovering from their illness. Hence, it is evident that the
face-to-face meeting will help the patient in a more beneficial way when compared to the
computer assisted therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy is therefore most extensively used
therapy that focus on changing the though and perception of the patient and help the patient
to identify the primary reason of their emotional trauma, anxiety or depression (Curwen,
Palmer & Ruddell, 2018). Identification of the thoughts will therefore help the patient to
adapt problem-solving technique and overcome from their psychological illness.
According to Kaczkurkin & Foa (2015), the researcher had offered evidence that
cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the most beneficial therapy or treating anxiety illness,
which includes obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder,
social anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder and phobia. The researcher had
exhibited that cognitive therapy and exposure therapy is moist effective to treat anxiety
disorders with enhanced patient outcome. Baucom et al. (2019) also exhibited the evidence to
highlight the advantage of Cognitive behavioural couple therapy (CBCT) for managing the
conflict and stress among the couple and help the couple to improve their relationship.
Computer-assisted therapy is also helpful for managing the patient suffering from different
psychological illness using computer programs. According to Singh, Borle & Goudra (2016),
computer-assisted therapy is used for advocating the patients to identify their needs and
accordingly assess the adverse effects that is responsible for their poor health condition.
Computer-assisted therapy comprise of mythological standard and different systematic steps
that will help the patient to solve their health-related issues. According to pot et al. (2019),
the researcher provided detail evidence of computer-assisted sedation model are also present
that will help the sedation providers to provide safe and consistent experience to the patient.

4PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
The computer-assisted sedation model is also based on the function of computer-assisted
therapy program and is widely used by large number of healthcare providers.

5PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
References
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behavior therapy: An illustrated guide. American Psychiatric Pub.

6PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
Meichenbaum, D. (2017). Changing conceptions of cognitive behavior modification:
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Curwen, B., Palmer, S., & Ruddell, P. (2018). Brief cognitive behaviour therapy. Sage.