Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Stress Management

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Stress Management

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a "talking" psychotherapeutic approach based on the melding of behavior therapy and cognitive therapy. Dating back to the 1950s, this form of therapy has proven effective in stress management and treating stress-related anxiety disorders. Learning and behavior therapy is based on the principles of positive reinforcement (Scaturo); cognitive therapy, attributed to Dr. Aaron T. Beck, is described as "a form of psychotherapy proven in numerous clinical trials to be effective for a wide variety of disorders. The therapist and client work together as a team to identify and solve problems. Therapists help clients to overcome their difficulties by changing their thinking, behavior, and emotional responses." (Beck and Beck) CBT as a whole involves living in the present and targeting behavior, thoughts, and emotions. In practice, this can translate to symptom targeting, practical stress reduction, time-limited therapy goals, reevaluation of thought patterns, practice of positive behaviors, self-reliance, "homework," classical and operant conditioning, exposure therapy, observational learning, and self-rewarding for progress (Falk, Hiller and Weissberg). Recent studies show the effectiveness of CBT in treating several types of stress-related problems in children, adolescents, and adults: generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, death anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others. Often the result of faulty cognitive schema such as probability overestimation errors and catastrophic thinking errors (Nakamura, Pestle and Chorpita), anxiety-related disorders have been a main focus of research on the effectiveness of CBT. This paper will explore the applications and effectiveness of CBT as a coping mechanism and stress-reduction strategy for patients suffering from some of the aforementioned afflictions.

According to New York-Presbyterian's Mental Health Glossary (http://nyp.org/health/mentalhealth-glossary.html), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is "a mental disorder that causes its sufferers chronic and exaggerated worry and tension that seem to have no substantial cause. Persons with generalized anxiety disorder often worry excessively about health, money, family, or work, and continually anticipate disaster." People with GAD are accustomed to approaching life as "worriers," and the disorder can be difficult to treat. They often become highly, negatively emotionally aroused when mentally imagining future events; effective treatment must deal with these stress-inducing mental images. While the idea of "generalized anxiety" may sound like a mild problem, experts have concluded that the social, emotional, and financial costs to a patient can be severe. Michael Dugas and Naomi Koerner have identified four root psychological contributors to GAD that can be effectively approached with cognitive-behavioral based therapies: intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, poor problem solving, and cognitive avoidance. (Dugas and Koerner)