Cognitive behavioral therapy: principles and applications

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

In comparison with many different types of treatments that are available cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been used as a way to address a host of anxiety and depression disorders without the use of prescription medication. This is because; this approach is based on the fact that health care professionals are treating someone by: looking at how their thoughts are influencing the way that they are interacting with others. To fully understand the effectiveness of this kind of treatment requires examining the use of CBT to deal with: a variety of issues / disorders, discussing the implications for treatment planning, understanding what aspects should be implemented when conducting a treatment program and the different ways that you can ensure that the therapy is useful at dealing with the objectives for each patient. Once this takes place, it will provide specific insights about the underlying effectiveness of CBT in: treating a wide variety of individuals.

Evaluate the literature on the use of CBT and diversity issues including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, age, socioeconomic class, disability, domestic violence, co-morbid disorders, or medical problems.

There are different pieces of literature that are effective at illustrating how the CBT techniques are more successful at dealing with a host of issues that are affecting people who suffer from a wide variety of disorders or come from various backgrounds. According to Burns (1980), this is because it focuses on four basic principals including: rapid symptomatic improvement, understanding, self-control and prevention / personal growth. The rapid symptomatic improvement is when a person is able to experience quicker periods of relief from their underlying symptoms. While, understanding is when a patient sees the kinds of issues that are contributing to their moody states and what they can do effectively deal with them. Self-control is when the patient is learning how to apply safe and effective coping strategies for a variety of situations. Prevention / personal growth is when a person is learning how to deal with the different moods and feelings they are experiencing. (Burns, 1980, pp. 10 -11) This is accomplished by understanding how to apply techniques that can ensure that someone is able to build upon the improvements they have made. These elements are important, because they are illustrating how regardless of: gender, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, age, socioeconomic class, disability, domestic violence, co-morbid disorders, or medical problems it is up to the individual to change how they feel. Once this takes place, it means that they can be able to overcome the various issues that they are wrestling with.

Discuss the implications for treatment planning with respect to such considerations and the American Counseling Association (ACA) guidelines and ethical standards.

The implications of these kinds of treatments are that they are taking into account a number of different factors that are relating to ACA guidelines to include: confidentiality and evaluation / assessment / interpretation. Confidentiality is when the mental health professional is protecting the thoughts, ideas and feelings of clients who are discussing them. This helps to ensure that the psychologist can understand what are: the deepest thoughts that each person is having. As, they believe that they are able to probe these ideas based on the fact that they will have them protected at all times. This allows mental health professionals to: make more effective evaluations, assessments and interpretations of these ideas. At which point, they can provide a useful analysis of these ideas, based upon the highest ethical standards in the industry. Once this occurs, it means that they can more effectively reach out to patients and offer specific techniques in dealing with the underlying challenges they are facing. (Glassoff, 2005)

What aspects would you consider while planning a treatment program for an individual with a racial, socioeconomic, cultural, or sexual orientation profile different from your own, or different from the usual profile of your patients? Why?

There are several different kinds of issues that you would consider when working with patients that have racial, socioeconomic, cultural or sexual orientation issues. To include: the thoughts that they are telling themselves about how others are viewing them and the way that they believe that they should be reacting to these situations. The reason why these different issues are being taken into account are due to the fact: that there could be some added pent up emotional hostilities that they are feeling and how they should be viewing different events. This is important, because it will help to identify these ideas. At which point, mental health professionals can introduce ways of coping with these thoughts over the long-term and the most effective strategy that they should utilize when dealing with them. This will help to change the state of mind of the patient and allow them to effectively overcome the negative reactions that they are having surrounding these situations. (Robbins, 1991, pp. 151 -- 169)