Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Class Notes

Question 1

What are three fundamental propositions of CBT?

Answer 1

1. cognitive activity affects behaviour and emotions
2. cognitive activity may be monitored and altered
3. desired behaviour change may be affected through cognitive change

Question 2

what is composed of the cognitive triad?

Answer 2

negative beliefs about

1. the self
2. the world
3. the future

Question 3

what are schemas?

Answer 3

schemas are organized, tacit cognitive structures made up of abstractions or general knowledge about the attributes of a stimulus domain and the relationships about these things

by storing information about the attributes of a stimulus, we conserve cognitive resources when we encounter new but similar stimuli

Question 4

what are five factors of thinking that schema influences?

Answer 4

1. What information is attended to
2. what information is encoded
3. how efficiently that information is stored (negative information goes into the brain more efficiently if its part of the schema)
4. how connected that information is to already existing information
5. how readily that information is recalled

Question 5

what are 7 types of cognitive distortions (the way we think)?

Answer 5

1. black and white thinking (all or nothing)
2. Mind reading (“they think… or “he will think….”)
3. Emotional reasoning (flying is frightening so it must be dangerous)
4. Personalization (assuming something said or done is directed to you)
5. over generalization (everything, always, never…)
6. Catastrophizing (the end of everything, worst thing possible…)
7. Selective Abstraction (focusing on the negative, discounting the positive)

Question 6

What are 4 cognitive techniques?

Answer 6

1. socratic questioning (what is the evidence?)
2. challenging thoughts (generating more rational alternatives)
3. Downward arrow… (identify core beliefs)

Question 7

why is saying “can’t” something that needs to be fixed in the client?

Answer 7

it immobilizes, disempowers the client to act, absolves the person of responsibility and prohibits options

its best to make them not do this

Question 8

what are some ways to change ‘can’t’?

Answer 8

with don’t, won’t, haven’t, didn’t … BUT WITH A GOOD REASON

allows for generation of options by opening a dialogue about those good responses

Question 9

what are the three main components of the cycle that needs to be broken in CBT?

Answer 9

Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviour cycle

Question 10

What are three behavioural techniques?

Answer 10

1. activity scheduling (individuals with depression have discontinued activities they once enjoyed and can no longer believe they are enjoyable)
2. Mastery (creating success; every little step is a success and it is all used as evidence)
3. Exposure (in anxiety)

Question 11

what are the four steps of exposing someone to their phobia?

Answer 11

1. relaxation training (ongoing)
2. subjective units of distress (SUDS); rating your fear on a scale of 1-100
3. hierarchy of fears ; what makes you the most scared about the stimulus to what makes you least scared… ranking the SUDS
4. exposure to feared stimulus either imaginational or tin vivo

Question 12

what are some common errors when administering exposure therapy? (8)

Answer 12

1. inadequate socialization to the model
2. failure to develop specific program
3. not assigning appropriate homework
4. premature emphasis on schema
5. therapist impatience, over directive
6. premature intro of rational techniques like relaxation
7. lack of rapport building
8. not attending to therapists own emotional response