Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on the concept that as human beings, our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are connected to each other. The purpose of cognitive behavioral therapy is to identify connections between emotions, thoughts, and actions and to work with clients to determine what is or is not helpful to their well-being based on that client's values. This style of treatment is considered person-centered and focuses heavily on psychoeducation and a strong therapeutic alliance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Cognitive behavioral therapy is actually the successor to an earlier talk therapy known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by noted psychologist Albert Ellis in 1955. This therapy was unique for its time, as it moved away from the psychoanalytic focus of maladjustments and childhood, and focused on the client's current thoughts and whether they were conducive to the life he would like to lead. live. According to Dr. Ellis, if these thoughts and associated emotions are not in alignment with what the client is trying to achieve, it is imperative that clients take the initiative to change these cognitions and resulting behavior. This form of therapy gave the client a lot of power and no longer portrayed him as a victim of circumstances or as poor caretaker from his parents. Instead, it made clients take responsibility and play an active role in bringing about the change they want to see in their lives. The key concepts of this therapy include providing clients with the tools necessary to: examine the validity of their cognitions, measure/record experiences as it is happening to the client, and to make necessary changes in behaviors and/or beliefs in order to interrupt the previous thought patterns. The key terms you might hear most in this type of therapy are cognitive distortions and homework. Cognitive distortions refer to a person's beliefs that are not rooted in absolute truth or objectivity, but rather are based on the client's less than accurate perception of reality. Cognitive distortions include catastrophizing (making any event a hardship, for example: I have never been late for work and today I will be 15 minutes late! I'm about to get fired!), personalizing (taking an event or the actions of a other person personally Example: My supervisor didn't say hello to me this morning, so I must have made a mistake on my last shift.) and polarized thinking (otherwise known as black and white thinking. Example: If I don't get into Harverd, then. my school career was useless.) These distortions tend to influence the client's judgment and often lead him to act in ways that he believes will correct the situation. In the context of CBT treatment, you will often hear the term "homework" which refers to the take-home task or task that a client and therapist work together to formulate in order to contribute to the achievement of explicit goals or to bring greater awareness to everyday cognitions in the client's life. In application, cognitive behavioral therapy may include restructuring, behavior modification, and/or the development of alternative coping skills. Within a session this might look like a client describing a particularly distressing scenario to their therapist and walking through which event leads to the thought, which leads to the belief, which ultimately leads to the behavior that follows. The analysis helps the therapist to.