Founding Principles Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy strategy employs treatment that zeros in on the relationships between "thoughts, feelings, and behaviors," according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). This paper delves into the founding and sustaining principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

There are certain patterns of thinking that can (and do) lead to "self-destructive actions," the NAMI website points out. These negative thoughts are often driven by beliefs that are not healthy, and hence, the CBT solution is a kind of psychotherapy that departs from traditional psychodynamic psychotherapy (NAMI). For example, the difference between CBT and other therapies is that the therapist and the client (patient) "…will actively work together to help the patient recover" from mental illness (NAMI).

Sometimes a person that is depressed develops an attitude that he or she is worthless; and on occasion a person with a panic disorder feels that "I am in danger" (NAMI). A person who is suffering from severe distress, who is fortunate to sit down with a cognitive behavioral therapist, becomes involved in a rational dialogue and is urged to "challenge these irrational beliefs" (NAMI). Moreover, patients undergoing CBT are asked by the therapist to write down any thoughts that enter their minds (this is called "automatic thoughts"), which allows the patient along with the therapist to try and find patterns in the patient's thinking that leads to the negative thoughts -- that often lead to negative, self-destructive behaviors (NAMI).

Kendra Cherry explains that the "…underlying concept behind CBT is that our thoughts and feelings play a fundamental role in our behavior" (Cherry, 2013). One of the underlying principles for CBT therapists is to help patients see that it is not possible to control every aspect of life, but they can have better control of "…how they interpret and deal with things in their environment" (Cherry, p. 1).

Brian Sheldon writes in his book Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Research and Practice in Health and Social Care that CBT's founding principles include a "…rational/logical analysis of thoughts," and those thoughts are directed towards an "analysis of emotions, their circumstantial triggers," and any consequences those emotions contribute to behaviors. Basically CBT helps patients give a "reality test" to their present patterns of thought; are the thoughts productive or destructive? If they are not positive, that gives the CBT therapist an opportunity to make changes through therapy.

CBT is used by therapists to help patients that are suffering from depression, from anxiety problems, from post traumatic stress syndrome, and CBT helps developmentally delayed people build skills (O'Donohue, et al., 2012). CBT is certainly not a "one problem therapy" and the core principles, when extended, have "important practical advantages," including that it is "often quicker" than other therapies (O'Donohue).