KBT psychology. Who will benefit from cognitive therapy and how? Referrals Using IPM Techniques

09.06.2020

The other day a man called. You, he says, are engaged in psychotherapy? Yes, I answer. Which one? I say, "My specialty is cognitive behavioral therapy." “Ah-ah,” he says, “that is normal psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, do not you do? "

So what is cognitive behavioral therapy? it is it psychoanalysis or not? CBT is better than psychoanalysis or not? These are the questions potential clients often ask.

In this article I want to talk about the main differences between the cognitive-behavioral approach and the rest. I will talk without going deeply into theory, but at a simple everyday level. And I hope, in the end, the readers will understand whether this is psychoanalysis or not.

Modern approaches in psychotherapy

The word "psychotherapy" consists of 2 parts: "psycho" and "therapy". That is, the whole word means "mental treatment." This can be done in a variety of ways, for the entire existence of psychology, people have accumulated tremendous experience in this area.

These ways of "treating the psyche" are called "approaches" or "directions" in psychotherapy. You can approach from the side of the head, or you can - from the side of the body, for example. Or you can treat the psyche individually one-on-one, or in a group with other people who also need similar help.

Today in the world there are more than a dozen approaches. Here non-exhaustive list, it's just that everything that came to my mind right now is alphabetically:

art therapy
gestalt therapy
cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy (or cognitive-behavioral)
Third wave approaches derived from CBT, eg ACT (Acceptance and Responsibility Therapy)
psychoanalysis
psychodrama
systemic family therapy
fairy tale therapy
body-oriented psychotherapy
transactional analysis, etc.

Some approaches are older, some are newer. Some are common, some are less common. Some are advertised in the movies, such as psychoanalysis or family counseling. All approaches require long-term basic training and then additional training from intelligent teachers.

Each approach has its own theoretical basis, that is, a set of some ideas why this approach workswho it helps and how it should be applied. For example:

In art therapy, the client is likely to conceptualize and solve problems through artistic and creative techniques such as sculpting, drawing, films, storytelling, etc.
In Gestalt therapy, the client will be attracted to the awareness of their problems and needs "here and now", expanding his understanding of the situation.
In psychoanalysis, there will be conversations with the therapist about dreams, associations, situations that come to mind.
In body-oriented therapy, the client works with the therapist in the form of physical exercises with clamps in the body, which in a certain way are associated with mental problems.

And ardent adherents of a certain approach will always argue with adherents of other approaches about the effectiveness and applicability of their own method. I remember when I was studying at the institute, our rector dreamed that someday a single unified approach would be finally created, which would be accepted by everyone, and it would be effective, and in general then happiness would come, most likely.

However, all these approaches equally have the right to exist... None of them are "bad" or "good". A specialist who uses, for example, CBT, but does not use psychoanalysis, is not some kind of insufficiently professional. We do not require that the surgeon also know how to treat ear infections, otherwise he is not a surgeon at all. Some methods are better researched than others, but more on that later.

The essence of the cognitive-behavioral approach

The basic theoretical framework for cognitive behavioral therapy was developed by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis.

Now let's take one of these approaches - cognitive-behavioral.

One of the key concepts of CBT is that the source of a person's problems is likely to be within the person, not outside of him. what it is not situations that give him discomfort, but his thoughts, assessments of situations, assessments of himself and other people.

People tend to cognitive schemas (eg, "Real men don't do that") and cognitive distortion (for example, "predicting the future" or ""), as well as automatic thoughts that provoke the appearance of negative emotions.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, the client and the therapist are something like thought researchers client. By asking various, sometimes tricky or funny questions, suggesting experiments, the therapist encourages the client to discover biases, irrational logic, belief in untruths, maxing out the truth, and try to challenge them, that is, to question them.

Some of these "assessments" or "beliefs" do not help a person to adapt to this world and to other people, but on the contrary, as if pushing him to isolation from other people, himself, the world.

They contribute to the worsening of depression, the appearance of anxiety, phobia, etc.

In the process of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, the client will be able to see his beliefs from the outside and decide whether to stick with them further, or to try to change something - and this is helped by a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist.

This kind of “revision” of your ideas about yourself, the world around you and other people helps to cope with depression, get rid of anxiety or self-doubt, increase assertiveness and self-esteem, and solve other problems. Albert Ellis in one of his books outlined his point of view on mental health, composing.

Another important basic point in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is considering thoughts, feelings and behavior in a complex, as interrelated, and, accordingly, strongly influencing each other.

By relieving the tension that comes from thoughts, the tension in feelings and actions is naturally relieved. It is usually easy for people to put CBT skills into practice. In a sense, this area of \u200b\u200bpsychotherapy is something like education / training / coaching, which aims to improve the client's condition here, now and in the future.

The main components of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy

CBT is known for the fact that it supposedly has a "protocol" for each condition. Kind of easy-to-use instruction for the therapist to take and apply to the client. And the client went happy with no problem. At the beginning of each training session, they usually ask what the audience's expectations are, and in CBT trainings someone will definitely mention “I want a protocol of work”.

In fact, these are not step-by-step protocols, but rather schemes, psychotherapy plans, which take into account the peculiarities of the states. So, for example, for CBT in the plan there will be a stage of working with, and in case it is necessary to take time to work with self-esteem and incorrect standards about yourself.

There is no literal, step-by-step instruction (aka protocol) in CBT.

Typical and general stages of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy:

Psychological education.
Work on beliefs that contribute to sustaining the problem.
, experiments live and in imagination to test beliefs.
Preventing relapse for the future.

Within these stages, a variety of methods are used: cognitive restructuring, Socratic dialogue, the continuum of thinking, the method of the falling arrow, etc.

Effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy

The results of CBT are fairly well researched. There has been sooooo much research that has found it to be highly effective in addressing many troubling issues, is well received by clients and is relatively short-lived.

On the same topic:

I'm too lazy to copy here links to all these studies, to be honest - there are too many of them. Effective for self-esteem, anxiety, depression, phobias, personal problems, chronic pain, self-doubt, eating disorders ... fill in yours. I don't mean that other approaches are worse. I say that the effect of a specific cognitive-behavioral approach has been studied many times, and found out that it works.

"By easing the tension that comes from thoughts, the tension in feelings and actions is naturally relieved." - anacoluth. Well, there should not be such mistakes in the speech of an educated person! Immediately - once - and trust is undermined.

I admire this science called PSYCHOLOGY. And specialists in this profile simply work miracles at times. But psychologists say that everything can be corrected as long as a person is alive in the body, the soul can always be healed! A very interesting article, I read it in one breath)) maybe you can help me too, 3 years ago I was an eyewitness to a terrible picture ... I still can't come to my senses. Constant fear worries, what would you advise?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) deals with adjusting the thoughts and feelings that determine actions and actions that affect a person's lifestyle. It is based on the principle that an external influence (situation) evokes a certain thought, which is experienced and is embodied in specific actions, that is, thoughts and feelings shape the behavior of a person.

Therefore, in order to change their negative behavior, which often leads to serious life problems, you first need to change your stereotype of thinking.

For example, a person is panicky afraid of open space (agoraphobia), when he sees a crowd, he feels fear, it seems to him that something bad will happen to him. He reacts inadequately to what is happening, endows people with qualities that are not at all inherent in them. He himself becomes withdrawn, avoids communication. This leads to mental disorder, depression develops.

In this case, methods and techniques of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy can help, which will teach you to overcome the panic fear of large crowds. In other words, if you cannot change the situation, you can and should change your attitude towards it.

CBT emerged from the depths of cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy, combines all the main provisions of these techniques and sets specific goals that need to be addressed in the treatment process.

These should include:

Relief of symptoms of mental disorders;
Persistent remission after a course of therapy;
Low likelihood of re-manifestation (relapse) of the disease;
The effectiveness of medicines;
Correction of erroneous cognitive (mental) and behavioral attitudes;
Solving personality problems that caused mental illness.

Based on these goals, the psychotherapist helps the patient to solve the following tasks during treatment:

Find out how his thinking affects emotions and behavior;
Critically perceive and be able to analyze your negative thoughts and feelings;
Learn to replace negative beliefs and attitudes with positive ones;
On the basis of the developed new thinking, correct your behavior;
Solve the problem of your social adaptation.

This practical method of psychotherapy has found wide application in the treatment of certain types of mental disorderswhen it is necessary to help the patient to reconsider his views and behavioral attitudes, causing irreparable harm to health, destroying the family and causing suffering to loved ones.

Effective, in particular, in the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, if after drug therapy the body is cleansed of toxic poisoning. During the rehabilitation course, which takes 3-4 months, patients learn to cope with their destructive thinking and correct their behavioral attitudes.

It's important to know! Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy will be effective only when the patient wants it and establishes a trusting contact with the therapist.

Basic methods of cognitive behavioral therapy

Methods of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy are based on the theoretical objectives of cognitive and behavioral (behavioral) therapy. The psychologist does not set himself the goal of getting to the roots of the problems that have arisen. Through proven methods, applying specific techniques, he teaches positive thinking so that the patient's behavior changes for the better. During psychotherapeutic sessions, some of the methods of pedagogy and psychological counseling are also used.

The most significant CBT techniques are:

Cognitive therapy... If a person is insecure and perceives his life as a streak of failures, it is necessary to consolidate in his mind positive thoughts about himself, which should return him confidence in his abilities and the hope that everything will definitely work out for him.
Rational emotive therapy... It is aimed at the patient's awareness of the fact that their thoughts and actions need to be coordinated with real life, and not hover in their dreams. This will protect you from inevitable stress and teach you to make the right decisions in various life situations.
Reciprocal inhibition... Inhibitors are substances that slow down the course of various processes, in our case we are talking about psychophysical reactions in the human body. Fear, for example, can be suppressed by anger. During the session, the patient can imagine that he can suppress his anxiety, for example, by complete relaxation. This leads to the extinction of the pathological phobia. Many special techniques of this method are based on this.
Autogenic training and relaxation... It is used as an adjunct to CBT sessions.
Self-control... Based on the operant conditioning method. It is understood that the desired behavior in certain conditions should be fixed. Relevant for difficulties in life situations, for example, study or work, when various kinds of addictions or neuroses arise. They help to raise self-esteem, control unmotivated outbursts of rage, extinguish neurotic manifestations.
Introspection... Keeping a behavior diary is one way to "stop" to interrupt obsessive thoughts.
Self-instructions... The patient must ask himself the tasks that must be adhered to for a positive solution to his problems.
Stop-tap method or self-control triad... Internal "stop!" negative thoughts, relaxation, positive perception, mental reinforcement.
Evaluating feelings... The "scaling" of feelings is made according to a 10-point or other system. This allows the patient to determine, for example, the level of his anxiety, or, conversely, confidence, where on the "scale of feelings" they are. It helps to objectively assess your emotions and take steps to reduce (increase) their presence on the mental and sensory level.
Investigation of threatening consequences or "what if"... Promotes the expansion of limited horizons. When asked "What if something terrible happens?" the patient should not overestimate the role of this "terrible", which leads to pessimism, but find an optimistic answer.
Advantages and disadvantages... The patient, with the help of a psychologist, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of his mental attitudes and finds ways of balancing their perception, this allows you to solve the problem.
Paradoxical intention... The technique was developed by the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. Its essence is that if a person is very afraid of something, he needs to return to this situation in his feelings. For example, a person suffers from a fear of insomnia, he needs to be advised not to try to sleep, but to stay awake as long as possible. And this urge to “stay awake” ultimately causes sleep.
Anxiety Control Training... Used if a person is in stressful situations cannot control himself, make a decision quickly.

Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for treating neuroses

Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques include a wide variety of specific exercises with which the patient must solve his problems. Here are just a few:

Reframing (English - frame)... With the help of special questions, the psychologist forces the client to change the negative "framework" of his thinking and behavior, to replace them with positive ones.
Diary of thoughts... The patient records his thoughts to understand what is disturbing and affecting his thoughts and well-being during the day.
Empirical verification... Includes several ways to help you find the right solution and forget negative thoughts and arguments.
Examples of fiction... Clearly explain the choice of a positive judgment.
Positive imagination... Helps get rid of negative perceptions.
Role reversal... The patient imagines that he is comforting his comrade who finds himself in his position. Here's what he could advise him in this case?
Flooding, implosion, paradoxical intention, provoked by anger... They are used when working with childhood phobias.

This also includes the identification alternative reasons behavior, as well as some other techniques.

Treating depression with cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy for depression is widely used nowadays. It is based on the cognitive therapy method of the American psychiatrist Aaron Beck. According to his definition, “depression is characterized by a globally pessimistic attitude of a person to his own person, outside world and your future. "

This has a heavy effect on the psyche, not only the patient himself suffers, but also his relatives. Today, more than 20% of the population in developed countries suffers from depression. It significantly reduces the ability to work, and the likelihood of a suicidal outcome is high.

There are many symptoms of a depressive state, they manifest themselves on the mental (dark thoughts, no concentration of attention, difficulty making decisions, etc.), emotional (melancholy, depressed mood, anxiety), physiological (sleep disturbance, loss of appetite, decreased sexuality) and behavioral ( passivity, avoidance of contact, alcoholism or drug addiction as temporary relief) level.

If such symptoms are observed for at least 2 weeks, it is safe to speak about the development of depression. In some, the disease proceeds unnoticed, in others it becomes chronic and lasts for years. In severe cases, the patient is admitted to a hospital where he is being treated with antidepressants. After drug therapy, the help of a psychotherapist is needed, methods of psychodynamic, trance, existential psychotherapy are used.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression has proven its worth. All the symptoms of a depressive state are studied, and with the help of special exercises the patient can get rid of them. One of the most effective CBT techniques is cognitive remodeling.

The patient, with the help of a psychotherapist, works with his negative thoughts, which are reflected in the behavior, speaks them out loud, analyzes and, as necessary, changes his attitude to what was said. Thus, he makes sure that his values \u200b\u200bare true.

The technique includes a number of techniques, the most common are the following exercises:

Inoculation (grafting) of stress... Coping skills are taught to the patient to help cope with stress. First you need to understand the situation, then develop certain skills to deal with it, then you should consolidate them through certain exercises. The "inoculation" obtained in this way helps the patient to cope with strong feelings and disturbing events in his life.
Suspension of thinking... A person is fixated on his irrational thoughts, they interfere with adequately perceiving reality, serve as a reason for the appearance of anxiety, as a result, a stressful situation arises. The psychotherapist invites the patient to reproduce them in his internal monologue, then loudly says: "Stop!" This verbal barrier abruptly cuts off the negative judgment process. This technique, repeated several times in the course of therapeutic sessions, develops a conditioned reflex to "wrong" ideas, the old stereotype of thinking is corrected, new attitudes to the rational type of judgments appear.

It's important to know! There is no treatment for depression that works for everyone. What works for one may not work at all for another. To find an acceptable method for yourself, you do not need to dwell on one only on the basis that it helped someone from your relatives or friends.

How to treat depression with cognitive behavioral therapy - watch the video:

Cognitive behavioral therapy (psychotherapy) has proven to be effective in the treatment of various neuroses. If a person feels a discord in his soul associated with a negative assessment of himself, you need to turn to a specialist who will help change the attitude (thoughts and behavior) towards yourself and the surrounding reality. It is not without reason that it is sung: "Get hardened if you want to be healthy!" Such "hardening" from various neuroses, including depression, are the methods and techniques that are very popular these days CBT.

Cognitive behavior and related learning combines the higher forms of mental activity that are more characteristic of adult animals with highly developed nervous system and based on its property to form a holistic image of the environment. With cognitive forms of learning, the situation is assessed in which higher mental processes are involved; it uses both past experience and analysis of available options, resulting in an optimal solution.

The cognitive capabilities of animals are determined by their intelligence, which means "the highest form of mental activity of animals (monkeys and a number of other higher vertebrates), which is distinguished by the display of not only the objective components of the environment, but also their relations and connections (situations), as well as non-stereotypical solutions, complex problems in various ways with transfer and use various operations learned as a result of previous individual experience. I. f. manifests itself in the processes of thinking, which in animals always has a specific sensory-motor character, is objectively related and is expressed in the practical analysis and synthesis of established connections between phenomena (and objects) directly perceived in a clearly observed situation "(" Brief psychological dictionary " Under the general editorship of A.V. Petrovsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix, 1998).

The intellectual behavior of animals is usually studied using the following approaches: 1) techniques associated with pulling the bait tied to one of many adjacent ribbons, strings, to establish the ability of animals to catch connections and relationships between various objects; 2) the use of various objects by animals as primitive tools, the construction of pyramids to realize their needs, which cannot be directly satisfied; 3) workarounds with rigid and variable labyrinths, on the way to the goal, which is not always within the constant visibility for the animal, for this there are obstacles along the route; 4) delayed reactions of active choice, requiring the retention of traces from the stimulus in the memory in the form of an image or representation as elements of complex mental processes; 5) selection for a sample (method of paired presentation) to study the identity, community, discrimination of signals, their shape, shape, size, etc .; 6) problem situations in various labyrinths, cells, etc. - analysis of insight; 7) reflexes to transfer experience to new conditions as a technique for reflecting elementary forms of generalization; 8) extrapolation of the direction of movement of the stimulus, the ability to operate with the empirical dimension of figures; 9) teaching the rudiments of language (language of gestures, signs, folding phrases from multi-colored plastic chips of different shapes and expressing new sentences, etc., sound communications; 10) studying group behavior, social cooperation; 11) EEG studies of complex forms of behavior and mathematical modeling.

In connection with the methods used, it is customary to distinguish the following forms of cognitive behavior: elementary rational activity (according to L.V. Krushinsky), latent learning, the development of psychomotor skills (psychomotor learning according to I.S.Beritashvili), insight and probabilistic forecasting.

According to L.V. Krushinsky (Krushinsky LV Biological bases of rational activity. Moscow State University, 1986), rational (intellectual) activity differs from any form of behavior and learning. This form of adaptive behavior can occur when an animal first encounters an unusual situation. The fact that an animal, immediately without special training, can make the right decision is a unique feature of rational activity.

Thinking as something psychophysiological whole is not reduced to simple associations. The function of generalization in animals is formed on the basis of experience, comparison processes, the selection of essential features in a number of objects, their combination, which contributes to the formation of associations in them and the ability to catch the correctness of the course of events, predicting future consequences. Simple use previous experience, mechanical reproduction of conditioned-reflex connections cannot provide quick adaptation in constantly changing environmental conditions, flexibly respond to non-standard situations, and program behavior.

The real relationship of objects and phenomena at the stage of intelligence can be captured from the first presentation of the situation. However, intelligent cognitive activity not only does not exclude previous experience, but also uses it, although it is not reduced to practice, in which it differs significantly from a conditioned reflex. Normally, quick solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity are possible only with their gradual complication. This is natural, because in order to empirically grasp any pattern, a number of phenomena are needed.

The psychophysiological interpretation of intelligence should probably be based on the fact that the brain is constantly comparing, isolating, distracting and generalizing information delivered by sensory systems.

A person reacts to external stress in a certain way and at the same time a certain behavior model is developed that is inherent exclusively to this person and a reaction that is familiar only to him, which is not always correct. " Wrong"Behavior pattern or" wrong "response and causes the symptoms of the disorder. However, you need to clearly understand that this model can be changed, and you can unlearn the developed habitual reaction, and most importantly learn correct”, Useful and constructive, which will help to cope with difficulties without bringing on new stresses and fears.

Cognitiveness in psychology is a person's ability to mentally perceive and process external information, based on their deepest beliefs, attitudes and automatic (unconscious) thoughts. Such thought processes it is customary to call " mental state man. "

Cognitions are stereotypical, "automatic", sometimes instantaneous thoughts that arise in a person and are a reaction to a certain situation. Cognitions psychologically traumatize a person and lead him to panic attacks, fears, depression and other nervous disorders. Such disastrous assessments and negative attitudes make a person react to what is happening with resentment, fear, guilt, anger, or even hopelessness. The psychologist works with this.

Cognitive behavioral therapy can be expressed as a cognitive formula:

Negative feelings of a person are not the result of a given situation, but the ability of a person, once in a certain situation, to develop his own opinion about it and it is after that to decide how he relates to this situation, who he sees himself in it and what emotions it causes in him ...

In other words, for a person it is not so important what happens to him, as much as what he thinks about it, what thoughts underlie his experiences and how he will act further ... These are the thoughts that lead to negative experiences ( panic fears, phobias and other nervous disorders) and are unconscious "taken for granted" and therefore poorly understood by a person.

The main task of the CBT psychologist is to work with thoughts, with an attitude to a given situation, with correcting distortions and thinking errors, which will ultimately lead to the formation of more adaptive, positive, constructive and life-affirming stereotypes of further behavior.

Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy consists of several stages... During consultations with a psychologist, the client gradually "step by step" learns to change his thinking, which leads him to panic attacks, he gradually opens the vicious circle consisting of fear that causes this panic, and also learns techniques aimed at reducing the level of anxiety. As a result, the client overcomes frightening situations and qualitatively changes his life.

The main advantage of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is that the result obtained from consultations with a psychologist is stable and lasts a long time. This is due to the fact that after CBT, the client becomes his own psychologist, since during the consultations he masters the methods and techniques of self-control, self-diagnosis and self-treatment.

The main points of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy:

Your negative experiences are not the result of a past situation, but your personal assessment of this situation, your thoughts about it, as well as who do you see yourself and the people who surround you in this situation.
It is possible to radically change your assessment of a particular situation and change the flow of thoughts about it from negative to positive.
Although your negative beliefs look plausible in your opinion, this does not mean that they are true. It is from such false "plausible" thoughts that you get worse and worse.
Your negative experiences are directly related to the patterns of typical thinking to which you are accustomed, as well as to the erroneous processing of information that you received. You can change your thinking pattern and check for mistakes.

identify negative thoughts that cause PA, fears, depression and other nervous disorders;
revise the lifestyle and normalize it (for example, avoid chronic overload, revise the poor organization of work and rest, eliminate all provoking factors, etc.);
keep the results obtained for a long time and not lose the acquired skills in the future (not avoid, but withstand future negative situations, be able to cope with depression and anxiety, etc.);
overcome the shame of anxiety, stop hiding your existing problems from loved ones, enjoy support and accept help with gratitude.

Cognitive techniques (techniques) of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy:

At consultations, the CBT psychologist, depending on the problem, uses various cognitive techniques (techniques) that help analyze and recognize the negative perception of the situation in order to eventually change it to a positive one.

Very often a person is afraid of what he has prophesied to himself and in anticipation of this moment he starts to panic. On a subconscious level, he is already ready for danger, long before it happens. As a result, the person is mortally frightened in advance and tries in all possible ways to avoid this situation.

Cognitive techniques can help you control negative emotions and change negative thinking, thereby reducing premature fear that escalates into panic attacks. With the help of these techniques, a person changes his fatal perception of panic (which is characteristic of his negative thinking) and thereby shortens the duration of the attack itself, and also significantly reduces its impact on the overall emotional state.

During consultations, a psychologist creates an individual system of tasks for his client. (how positive the result of the course of therapy depends on the client's active participation and homework). This technique is better called "learning". The psychologist teaches the client to control his negative thoughts and resist them in the future.

These homework assignments include introducing a special diary, performing step-by-step instructions, training an internal optimistic dialogue, using relaxation (relaxing) exercises, performing certain breathing exercises and much more. In each case, different cognitive techniques are selected.

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Objectives and core principles

Have you noticed that often people behave differently in the same situation? But in some cases, others may react in the same way to any irritating factors. This suggests that their perception of the situation is the same. Behavior will depend on the perception of the situation, and views on life are formed during a person's life.

Definition of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy

Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy or cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is one of the branches of science, based on the assumption that the causes of mental disorders are dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs.

This can be said about the useful habit of preparing for tomorrow, so that you get ready on time and not be late for school and work. It is worth not doing this once and there will be an unpleasant experience of untimely arrival, for example, to a meeting. As a result of the acquisition of negative experience in the subconscious of a person, it is memorized. When this situation repeats, the brain gives a signal or a guide to action to get away from trouble. Or vice versa, do nothing. That is why some people, having received the first rejection of an offer, the next time they try not to do it again. We are always guided by our thoughts, we are under the influence of our own images. What about a person who during his life had many negative contacts, and under their influence a certain worldview was formed? It interferes with moving on, conquering new peaks. There is an exit. Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is called.

This method is one of the modern trends in therapy. mental illness... The treatment is based on the study of the origin of human complexes and his psychological problems. The American psychiatrist Aaron Beck is considered the creator of this method of therapy. Beck's cognitive psychotherapy is currently one of the effective ways treatment of depression, suicidal tendencies. Psychotherapy uses the principle of changing the patient's behavior and detecting the thoughts that cause the illness.

Purpose of therapy

The main goals of cognitive therapy are:

Elimination of symptoms of the disease.
Reducing the frequency of relapses after treatment.
The effectiveness of the use of drugs is increasing.
The solution to many of the patient's social problems.
Eliminating the causes that can cause this condition, changing human behavior, adapting it to various life situations.

Basic Principles of Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy

This technique allows you to eliminate negative thoughts, create new ways of thinking and analyze the real problem. Psychoanalysis includes:

The emergence of new thinking stereotypes.
Exploring unwanted or desirable thoughts and what triggers them.
Visualizing that a new behavior pattern can lead to emotional well-being.
How to apply new conclusions in your life, new situations.

The main idea of \u200b\u200bcognitive psychotherapy is that all of the patient's problems stem from his thinking. A person himself forms his attitude to everything that happens. Thus, he has corresponding feelings - fear, joy, anger, excitement. The person who inadequately evaluates the things around him, people and events, can endow them with such qualities that are not inherent in them.

Doctor's help

First of all, the psychiatrist, when treating such patients, tries to identify how they think, which leads to neurosis and suffering. And how to try to replace these categories of feelings with positive ones. People are again learning new methods of thinking that will lead to a more adequate assessment of any life situation. But the main condition for treatment is the patient's desire to be cured. If a person is not aware of his disease, experiences some resistance, then the treatment may be ineffective. An attempt to change negative thoughts and stimulation to change is quite difficult, because a person does not want to change his behavior, thinking. Many do not understand why they should change something in their life, if they already feel good. Conducting cognitive behavioral therapy alone will be ineffective. A specialist should be involved in the treatment, diagnosis and assessment of the degree of impairment.

Varieties of therapy

Like other treatments, cognitive psychotherapy has a variety of techniques. Some of the most popular ones are:

Simulation treatment. A person imagines the possible development of a situation as a consequence of his behavior. An analysis of his actions is carried out and how you can cope with this. Various relaxation techniques are used to get rid of anxiety and remove possible triggers that lead to stress. The method has proven itself well in the treatment of self-doubt and various fears.
Cognitive therapy. It is based on the acceptance that at emotional disorders the patient, he deliberately has thoughts of failure. A person immediately thinks that he will not succeed, while self-esteem is lowered, the slightest hint of failure is perceived as the end of the world. During treatment, the cause of these thoughts is studied. Various situations are asked in order to gain positive life experiences. The more successful events in life, the more self-confident the patient is, the faster he develops a positive opinion of himself. Over time, a person from a failure turns into a successful and self-confident.
Anxiety control exercise. The physician teaches the patient to use anxiety as a relaxant. During the session, the psychiatrist works through possible situations to prepare the patient for frequent events. This technique is used for those people who, in stressful situations, cannot control themselves and cannot make a decision quickly.
Dealing with stress. As a result of applying this technique against stress, the patient is taught relaxation with the help of a psychotherapist. The person gets stressed on purpose. This helps to gain experience with the relaxation technique, which may be useful in the future.
Rational emotive therapy. There are people who consider themselves to be the best. These thoughts often lead to inconsistencies real life to dreams. Which can lead to constant stress, the divergence of dreams and reality is perceived as a terrible event. Treatment is about motivating the person to live a real life, not a fictional one. Over time, the ability to make the right decisions will protect you from unnecessary stress, the patient will no longer be dependent on his dreams.

What the patient will receive as a result of treatment:

Ability to identify negative thoughts.
Realistically evaluate thoughts, change them to more constructive ones that do not cause anxiety and depression.
Normalize and maintain a lifestyle, eliminate provoking factors for stress.
Use the skills you learn to deal with anxiety.
Overcome anxiety, not hide problems from loved ones, consult with them and enjoy their support.

Anxious joy and sadness

Let's start outlining the main provisions of the article "Modeling User Behavior in Internet Search and Cognitive Styles." Gigerenzer (1996), Heselton et al. (2005) argue that the content and direction of cognitive biases can be controlled.

The concept of "cognitive processes" has often been applied to such processes as memory, attention, perception, action, decision-making and imagination. The above division is now considered largely artificial, and research is being conducted that studies the cognitive component of emotions. Along with this, there is often also the personality ability to “be aware” of cognitive strategies and methods, known as “metacognition”. The tremendous success of the cognitive approach can be explained, first of all, by its prevalence as fundamental in modern psychology.

How much conscious human intervention is required to carry out the cognitive process? What influence does personality have on the cognitive process? If so, what is the connection? The simple explanation for this is that living beings tend to maintain their attention to something, trying to avoid interruption and distraction at each of the levels of perception.

Cognitive development

In another way, this whole complex of stable characteristics of how individuals think, seek, perceive and remember information, prefer to solve problems, is called cognitive style. Do you know how these well-established behaviors affect the way your potential customers search for marketing information and choose an offer?

To begin with, they passed a special test (Riding's cognitive style analysis test) to determine their personal cognitive behavioral model. There is also an intermediate type that combines the characteristics of both holists and analysts.

Cognitive ontology

These people are good at writing texts and great at working with visual, spatial and graphic information. This approach is very helpful for those visitors who are looking for a certain specific product: the more search terms in a query, the faster and easier it is to find what they are looking for.

Unsolved problems of cognitive theory

How often a word is used in search queries doesn't necessarily mean it's the best possible keyword for your particular landing page. Of course, the research we talked about in this post by no means brought the final clarity to the description of the cognitive behavior model of Internet users.

Tailor your content to fit different cognitive patterns of user behavior. Explore the cognitive styles of your target audience. In this case, both past experience and analysis of available opportunities are used, as a result of which the optimal solution is formed. The cognitive capabilities of animals are determined by their intelligence, which means the highest form of mental activity of animals (monkeys and a number of other higher vertebrates).

According to L. V. Krushinsky, rational (intellectual) activity differs from any form of behavior and learning. This form of adaptive behavior can occur when an animal first encounters an unusual situation. The fact that an animal can immediately, without special training, make the right decision, is a unique feature of rational activity.

However, intelligent cognitive activity not only does not exclude previous experience, but also uses it, although it is not reduced to practice, in which it differs significantly from the conditioned reflex. The task of the psychotherapist is to voice and verbalize this formula.

The cognitive (cognitive) approach, possessing the features of "behavioral", reflects the essence of rational-emotional psychotherapy. Imperfect thinking is found in what people say to themselves; this “self-talk” also affects behavior.

People tend to create their own "subjective social reality", depending on their perception, and this subjective reality can determine their behavior in society. Thus, cognitive biases can lead to imprecise judgment, illogical interpretations, or irrational behavior in the broadest sense of the word. Tversky and Kahneman explained these discrepancies in judgment and decision making in terms of heuristics.

In practice, investors act on the basis of all sorts of cognitive biases (biases, heuristic stereotypes, emotional effects, etc.)

The influence of stereotypes in decision making is also mentioned by Heselton and other researchers. They exist as cognitive biases characteristic of social groups (such as psychological phenomenon polarization of groups (English), and manifested at the individual level. Some cognitive biases influence decision making where the desirability of decision options is important (for example, the sunk cost fallacy).

Emotions are traditionally not classified as cognitive processes. The concept of correcting cognitive distortions (eng.) There is a group of cognitive distortions associated with the way the brain perceives, recalls, and draws conclusions. Kahneman and Tversky (1996) also argue that the study of cognitive biases is of great practical importance, in particular in the medical field. In addition, some cognitive biases allow faster decision making in situations where decision speed is more important than accuracy.

Cognitivism is a modern trend in psychology

In psychology, such a concept as "cognitivism" is often encountered.

What is it? What does this term mean?

In simple words about the theory of cognitive dissonance here.

Explanation of the term

Cognitivism is a trend in psychology, according to which individuals do not just mechanically react to external events or internal factors, but use the power of reason for this.

His theoretical approach is to understand how thinking is arranged, how the incoming information is deciphered and how it is organized to make decisions or perform everyday tasks.

Research is related to human cognitive activity, and cognitivism is based on mental activity, not behavioral responses.

Cognitiveness - what is it in simple words? Cognitiveness is a term that denotes a person's ability to mentally perceive and process external information.

Cognition concept

The main concept in cognitivism is cognition, which is itself cognitive process or a set of mental processes, which includes perception, thinking, attention, memory, speech, awareness, etc.

That is, such processes that are associated with the processing of information in the structures of the brain and its subsequent processing.

What does cognitive mean?

When something is described as "cognitive" - \u200b\u200bwhat do they mean? Which one?

Cognitive means referring in one way or another to cognition, thinking, consciousness and brain functions, providing the receipt of introductory knowledge and information, the formation of concepts and their operation.

For a better understanding, consider a few more definitions directly related to cognitivism.

Several definitions for example

What does the word "cognitive" mean?

Cognitive style is understood to mean relatively stable individual characteristics how different people have the process of thinking and understanding, how they perceive, process information and remember it, as well as the way of solving problems or problems that the individual chooses.

This video explores cognitive styles:

What is cognitive behavior?

Cognitive behavior of a person is the thoughts and ideas that are inherent to a greater extent in this particular individual.

These are behavioral reactions that arise to a certain situation after processing and ordering information.

The cognitive component is a collection of different attitudes towards oneself. It includes the following elements:

self-image;
self-esteem, that is, an assessment of this idea, which can have a different emotional color;
potential behavioral response, that is, possible behavior based on self-image and self-esteem.

A cognitive model is understood as a theoretical model that describes the structure of knowledge, the relationship between concepts, indicators, factors, observations, and also reflects how information is received, stored and used.

In other words, it is an abstraction of a psychological process that reproduces key points in the opinion of a given researcher for his research.

The video clearly demonstrates the classic cognitive model:

Cognitive perception is the intermediary between the event that happened and your perception of it.

This perception is called one of the most effective ways to deal with psychological stress. That is, it is your assessment of the event, the brain's reaction to it and the formation of a meaningful behavioral response.

The phenomenon in which the ability of an individual to assimilate and comprehend what is happening from the external environment is limited is called cognitive deprivation. It includes a lack of information, its variability or chaos, lack of order.

Because of it, there are obstacles to productive behavioral responses in the world around.

Thus, in professional activities, cognitive deprivation can lead to errors and interfere with effective decision-making. And in everyday life, it can be the result of false conclusions about the surrounding individuals or events.

Empathy is the ability to empathize with a person, to understand the feelings, thoughts, goals and aspirations of another individual.

It is subdivided into emotional and cognitive.

And if the first is based on emotions, then the second is based on intellectual processes, reason.

The most difficult types of learning include cognitive.

Thanks to it, the functional structure of the environment is formed, that is, the relationships between its components are extracted, after which the results obtained are transferred to reality.

Cognitive learning includes observation, mental and mental activity.

The cognitive apparatus is understood as the internal resources of cognition, thanks to which intellectual structures, the structure of thinking, are formed.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability of the brain to move smoothly from one thought to another, as well as to think about several things at the same time.

It also includes the ability to adapt behavioral responses to new or unexpected situations. Cognitive flexibility matters a lot in learning and solving difficult tasks.

It allows you to receive information from the environment, monitor its variability and correct behavior in accordance with the new requirements of the situation.

The cognitive component is usually closely related to the self-concept.

This is an individual's idea of \u200b\u200bhimself and a set of certain characteristics that, in his opinion, he possesses.

These beliefs can be of varying importance and change over time. The cognitive component can be based both on objective knowledge and on any subjective opinion.

Cognitive properties are understood to be those properties that characterize the abilities of an individual, as well as the activity of cognitive processes.

Cognitive factors play an important role in our mental health.

These include the ability to analyze one's own state and environmental factors, assess past experience and make predictions for the future, determine the ratio of existing needs and the level of their satisfaction, and control the current state and situation.

Cognitive impairment - what is it? Find out about it from our article.

What is “I-Concept”? A clinical psychologist explains in this video:

Cognitive assessment is an element of the emotional process, which includes the interpretation of an ongoing event, as well as one's own and other people's behavior based on attitudes towards values, interests, and needs.

In the cognitive theory of emotion, it is noted that cognitive assessment determines the quality of experienced emotions and their strength.

Cognitive features represent specific characteristics cognitive style associated with the age of the individual, his sex, place of residence, social status and environment.

Cognitive experience is understood as mental structures that ensure the perception of information, its storage and ordering. They allow the psyche to further reproduce stable aspects of the environment and, in accordance with this, promptly respond to them.

Cognitive rigidity is the inability of an individual to change his own perception of the environment and ideas about it when receiving additional, sometimes conflicting, information and the emergence of new situational requirements.

Cognitive cognition is looking for methods and ways to improve efficiency, improve human mental activity.

With its help, it becomes possible to form a multifaceted, successful, thinking personality. Thus, cognitive cognition is a tool for the formation of the cognitive abilities of an individual.

One of the traits of common sense is cognitive biases. Individuals often reason about something or make decisions that are useful in some cases but misleading in others.

They represent the biases of the individual, biased biases in assessment, a tendency to unjustified conclusions as a result of insufficient information or unwillingness to take it into account.

Thus, cognitivism comprehensively examines the mental activity of a person, examines thinking in various changing situations. This term is closely related to cognitive activity and its effectiveness.

You can learn how to deal with cognitive biases in this video:

Cognitive behavior

General Psychology: Glossary. R. Comer.