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Cognitive Theory: Cognitive Restructuring To Treat Phobia

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Taveline Wangechi

Cognitive theory asserts that cognition plays a central role in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Cognitive therapy helps people overcome problems by developing more functional ways of thinking. Counselors help clients recognize negative or dysfunctional thoughts and thought patterns and encourage applying new, more realistic thinking. Cognitive restructuring is an effective cognitive therapy technique for treating anxiety disorders like phobias. It involves identifying a client's maladaptive thoughts and cognitive biases and replacing them with more realistic perspectives through discussion and questioning. Ignoring cognitive theory in therapy can hinder understanding the client's issues and lead to wrong diagnoses or making the client feel unheard.

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Cognitive Theory: Cognitive Restructuring To Treat Phobia

Uploaded by

Taveline Wangechi
48 views2 pages
Cognitive theory asserts that cognition plays a central role in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Cognitive therapy helps people overcome problems by developing more functional ways of thinking. Counselors help clients recognize negative or dysfunctional thoughts and thought patterns and encourage applying new, more realistic thinking. Cognitive restructuring is an effective cognitive therapy technique for treating anxiety disorders like phobias. It involves identifying a client's maladaptive thoughts and cognitive biases and replacing them with more realistic perspectives through discussion and questioning. Ignoring cognitive theory in therapy can hinder understanding the client's issues and lead to wrong diagnoses or making the client feel unheard.

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application of the cognitive thoery

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COGNITIVE THEORY

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Cognitive theory asserts that cognition plays a central role in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Cognitive therapy helps people overcome problems by developing more functional ways of thinking. Counselors help clients recognize negative or dysfunctional thoughts and thought patterns and encourage applying new, more realistic thinking. Cognitive restructuring is an effective cognitive therapy technique for treating anxiety disorders like phobias. It involves identifying a client's maladaptive thoughts and cognitive biases and replacing them with more realistic perspectives through discussion and questioning. Ignoring cognitive theory in therapy can hinder understanding the client's issues and lead to wrong diagnoses or making the client feel unheard.

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© All Rights Reserved
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48 views2 pages

Cognitive Theory: Cognitive Restructuring To Treat Phobia

Uploaded by

Taveline Wangechi
Cognitive theory asserts that cognition plays a central role in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Cognitive therapy helps people overcome problems by developing more functional ways of thinking. Counselors help clients recognize negative or dysfunctional thoughts and thought patterns and encourage applying new, more realistic thinking. Cognitive restructuring is an effective cognitive therapy technique for treating anxiety disorders like phobias. It involves identifying a client's maladaptive thoughts and cognitive biases and replacing them with more realistic perspectives through discussion and questioning. Ignoring cognitive theory in therapy can hinder understanding the client's issues and lead to wrong diagnoses or making the client feel unheard.

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COGNITIVE THEORY

The cognitive model asserts that cognitive processes are at the centre of
behaviours, thoughts and emotions. Proposed by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck,
cognitive theory emphasizes what people think instead of what they do.

The central place of cognition in this theory helps explain and resolve abnormal
behaviour. Counsellors need to understand what assumptions and attitudes
clients have, which can influence their perceptions and thoughts and ultimately
impact the conclusions they have. Several types of cognitive problems, like
assumptions, attitudes that are disturbing and inaccurate, and types of illogical
thinking such as overgeneralizations, can lead to abnormal functioning.

Cognitive therapy helps people overcome problems by developing new, more


functional ways of thinking. By changing their thoughts, people can change
how they feel and act. Counsellors help clients recognize negative thoughts,
errors in logic and biased interpretations that dominate their thinking and can,
for instance, lead them to feeling depressed. This type of therapy challenges
dysfunctional thoughts and encourages people to apply new types of thinking to
their lives.

Cognitive Restructuring to Treat Phobia

All three types of phobia fall into a larger group of psychological issues called
anxiety disorders, which are the most common type of psychiatric disorder.

Cognitive restructuring, based on cognitive theory, is part of an effective


treatment plan for anxiety disorder. It involves the counsellor asking questions
and helping to analyse the answers which will increase the client’s
understanding of his/her anxiety, and assisting the client in "rewriting" his/her
maladaptive thoughts.

The basic approach to cognitive restructuring put forth by leading cognitive


theorist Christine A. Padesky, Ph.D., recommends that the counsellor go
through four basic steps with the client:

1. Ask questions to identify the "self-talk" going on in the client’s head


when s/he feels anxious, and then facilitate a discussion to test if what
s/he’s thinking is really true.
2. Listen to what the client has to say with an empathetic ear and
unconditional acceptance.
3. Ask the client to summarize the main points of the session to reinforce
what s/he learned and address any misunderstandings.
4. Ask questions that allow the client to synthesize and analyse the new and
more realistic view of his/her anxiety so s/he can restructure her thought
patterns.

Cognitive Biases Treatment for Phobia

The counsellor relies on cognitive theory to identify the cognitive biases in the
client’s maladaptive thoughts as a part of his/her treatment plan. Two types of
cognitive biases addressed in anxiety treatment include:

Attention bias means that when the client is experiencing an anxiety trigger,
s/he pays attention to the negative signals instead of positive ones. For example,
if she has a fear of public speaking, she will only look at audience members
with facial expressions she sees as threatening, rather than seeking out the
smiling faces.

Interpretation bias, as the name implies, refers to misinterpreting information.


At the podium, she might think an audience member with a negative facial
expression is a reflection of how they feel about her when they're really just
tired.

As explained above, the cognitive theory is very important in such treatments.


Ignoring the theory may lead to:

I. The counsellor not fully understanding the source of the client’s phobia
and thus unable to help out.
II. There can be wrong diagnosis.
III. The counsellor may not let the client finish speaking and thus the client
may not feel free to speak, or s/he may retreat into a ‘shell’.

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