PSY101, Semester 1: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Essay Analysis

This essay examines Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a significant therapeutic approach for addressing stress, anxiety, and various mental health conditions. The essay discusses the increasing prevalence of these issues due to societal changes and the effectiveness of CBT in clinical settings. It outlines the core principles of CBT, which involves modifying distorted thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Different types of CBT, such as cognitive processing therapy, cognitive therapy (CT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), multimodal therapy, schema focused therapy, and rational emotional behavioral therapy are explored, highlighting their specific applications and techniques. The essay also emphasizes the collaborative and present-focused nature of CBT, supported by relevant academic references in APA format. It concludes with the efficacy of CBT in addressing emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and personality issues, making it a valuable tool in the field of psychotherapy.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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Cognitive behavioral therapy has been found to be an effective tool to address the
stress and anxiety which are one of the most common mental health conditions that are not
only applicable to the population of Australia but rest of the world as well. It is important to
understand that due to increase in the population and competition for resources, due to
emergence of technology and complex hierarchical divisions of society, due to lack of proper
employment, distorted social determinants of health and lack of work-life balance attributing
from stressful, long hours of work – has increased the prevalence of anxiety, stress and
incidents of emotional disturbances in the population. Of the therapies, cognitive behavioral
therapy is the most widely used talk therapy to address a range of mental health conditions
and disorders as well (Meßler, Holmberg & Sperlich, 2018). Cognitive behavioral therapy
has been found to aid the recovery process in a faster manner. Personal recovery and clinical
recovery are two different sides of recovery and it has been that psychotherapies such as talk
therapies are very useful to manage the clinical cases (Kratcoski, 2017).
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most cardinal intervention that is extensively used
in the clinical settings in order to address the causes and the symptoms of the mental health
conditions. Cognitive behavioral therapy modifies the thoughts, feelings, affect, emotions,
behavior, perception, beliefs, values, attitudes of the person positively and it targets to alter
the regions or rather the exact areas which has become rigid or very much distorted in the
subject. Cognitive behavioral therapies is of various types and are used in a range of clinical
settings to social and community settings by a large number of mental health professionals
who has been trained and licensed to administer cognitive behavioral therapy to the subjects.
The professionals are psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, counselors and the
psychotherapists. Cognitive behavioral therapy is aimed at improving the distorted cognitive
patterns in the individuals that result in changed patterns of thinking, delusions, fears and
emotional triggers as well. Cognitive behavioral therapies are used to treat a range of

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conditions such as stress, depression, panic attacks, psychosocial addictions, and negative
coping mechanisms such as eating disorders, anger and a range of phobias as well. Cognitive
behavioral therapy is targeted at improving and treating the behavior, affect and thinking of a
person. Cognitive behavioral therapies change the perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes
and emotions that are unhelpful or rather very much harmful for a person. The most critical
function of cognitive behavioral therapies is not only to correct the distorted cognitive
patterns of thinking and understanding but also to help the person or rather the client learn the
importance of emotional regulation associate with the uncontrolled drive of harmful or
unnecessary or inappropriate behaviors. There are various types of cognitive behavioral
therapies that are very useful to treat the certain mental health conditions. Cognitive
processing therapy is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that is used to treat the post-
traumatic stress disorder in the people with history of sexual abuse and in military veterans as
well. The most central aspect of cognitive processing therapy is to provide psycho-education
to the victims (McCauley et al., 2018). The cognitive therapy also known as CT is used to
treat the mental health conditions that has the cognitive triad involved that is distortions about
world, self plus the future. It is used to treat complex cognitive distortion problems such as
labeling, delusionary beliefs like mind reading and fortune telling, selective thoughts,
conclusive thinking, overgeneralization and dichotomous thinking. Dialectical behavioral
therapy is a very crucial and critical clinical therapy that is use to manage and eliminate the
self-harm behaviors, suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideations in patients with schizophrenia,
borderline personality disorder and other mental health conditions. Multimodal therapy is an
important approach in the field of psychotherapy which is integral to the execution and
formulation of the cognitive behavioral therapies. According to the multimodal therapy
approach, the different aspects of cognition of an individual such as thinking, feelings,
interaction, sensation, perception and imagination should be treated individually and

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holistically and then finally restored to normal, undistorted form by the application of
psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapies (Alpert, 2018). Schema
focused therapy is another critical type of cognitive behavioral therapy that is comes in
combination with interpersonal therapy and experiential therapy as well (DeRubeis, Keefe &
Beck, 2019). The various conditions that are addressed by the schema focused therapy are
emotional deprivation, failure, self-defeating behaviors, self-sacrifice, vulnerability to the
external harm, negativity, pessimism, emotional inhibition, enmeshment, subjugation and
self-sacrifice, mistrust and dependency issues in the subject (Mehlum et al., 2016). Rational
emotional behavioral therapy is used to address and manage the negative thought patterns
that chiefly affect the emotional, mood and affective aspects of an individual. It rationalizes
the ‘deformed’ thought and thinking patterns (Rith-Najarian et al., 2017). Cognitive
behavioral therapy in addition to the metacognitive therapy can be used to treat the symptoms
of attention fixation, states of worriment. The combination was also found to be useful in
addressing of the personality disorders which has specific symptoms of avoidance and
emotional inhibition as well. Various strategies such as monitoring one’s change of thoughts
and emotions, self-care skills like organization and evaluation, monitoring the mistakes are
incorporated in the psychotherapeutic treatment process (Xiang et al., 2019). The cognitive
behavioral process on the overall is based on seven major principles which are that it is
problem-focused, cognitive behavioral therapy is person or client-centered, cognitive
behavioral therapy focuses on improving the thoughts, emotions behaviors and emotions of
the person (thus complying with the therapeutic characteristics of the multimodal therapy
approach). Also that cognitive behavioral therapy is collaborative and it focuses on the
present state of the client, thus improving the present reality of the person.
The mental health issues ranging from anxiety disorders to various forms of the deep
seated emotional problems resulting depression, anhedonia, traumatic stress and other forms

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of behavioral and psychosocial disturbances has increased have affected the public health of
Australia is a drastic manner. Hence it can be concluded saying that cognitive behavioral
therapy is one of most effective tools in the psychotherapeutic field. With the range of
strategies and techniques it applies – various emotional, behavioral, cognitive and personality
issues of the clients of various age groups can be addressed efficiently, with good clinical
outcomes.

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References
Alpert, E. (2018). Measuring multimodal emotional processing in trauma-focused cognitive
behavioral therapy: an integrative approach (Doctoral dissertation, University of
Delaware).
DeRubeis, R. J., Keefe, J. R., & Beck, A. T. (2019). Cognitive therapy.
Kratcoski, P. C. (2017). Cognitive Behavioral Therapies Used in Correctional Treatment.
In Correctional Counseling and Treatment (pp. 255-271). Springer, Cham.
McCauley, E., Berk, M. S., Asarnow, J. R., Adrian, M., Cohen, J., Korslund, K., ... &
Linehan, M. M. (2018). Efficacy of dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents at
high risk for suicide: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA psychiatry, 75(8), 777-785.
Mehlum, L., Ramberg, M., Tørmoen, A. J., Haga, E., Diep, L. M., Stanley, B. H., ... &
Grøholt, B. (2016). Dialectical behavior therapy compared with enhanced usual care
for adolescents with repeated suicidal and self-harming behavior: outcomes over a
one-year follow-up. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry, 55(4), 295-300.
Meßler, C. F., Holmberg, H. C., & Sperlich, B. (2018). Multimodal therapy involving high-
intensity interval training improves the physical fitness, motor skills, social behavior,
and quality of life of boys with ADHD: a randomized controlled study. Journal of
attention disorders, 22(8), 806-812.
Rith-Najarian, L. R., Park, A. L., Wang, T., Etchison, A. I., Chavira, D. A., & Chorpita, B. F.
(2017). Applying new evidence standards to youth cognitive behavioral therapies–A
review. Behaviour research and therapy, 90, 147-158.

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Xiang, X., Wu, S., Zuverink, A., Tomasino, K. N., An, R., & Himle, J. A. (2019). Internet-
delivered cognitive behavioral therapies for late-life depressive symptoms: a
systematic review and meta-analysis. Aging & mental health, 1-11.