Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a well known therapy that is studied extensively in the Diploma of Professional Counselling. How much do you know about it?

CBT emphasises the recognising and changing of negative thoughts and maladaptative beliefs. The following are some concepts referred to in CBT:

Arbitrary Inferences: refers to making conclusions without supporting and relevant evidence. This includes "catastrophising", or thinking of the absolute worst scenario and outcomes for most situations.

Selective Abstraction: consists of forming conclusions based on isolated details of an event (and ignoring other information).

Overgeneralisation: is a process of holding extreme beliefs on the basis of a single incident and applying them inappropriately to dissimilar events or settings.

Personalisation: is a tendency for individuals to relate external events to themselves, even when there is no basis for making this connection.

Labelling or Mislabelling: involve portraying one's identity on the basis of imperfections and mistakes made in the past and allowing them to define one's true identity.

The approach of CBT is based on the theoretical rationale that the way people feel and behave is determined by how they interpret their experience. CBT proposes that change occurs by adjusting the client's thinking about the experience. Therefore, CBT counsellors work with clients to change thinking that may be distorted to enable the client to interpret the experience more realistically.

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