| The central insight of
cognitive therapy as originally formulated over three
decades ago is that thoughts mediate between stimuli,
such as external events, and emotions. As in the figure
below, a stimulus elicits a thought -- which might be an
evaluative judgement of some kind -- which in turn gives
rise to an emotion. In other words, it is not the
stimulus itself which somehow elicits an emotional
response directly, but our evaluation of or thought
about that stimulus.
Two assumptions underpin
the approach of the cognitive therapist:
- the client is
capable of becoming aware of his or her own thoughts
and of changing them
- sometimes the
thoughts elicited by stimuli distort or otherwise
fail to reflect reality accurately.
Cognitive therapy
suggests that psychological distress is caused by
distorted thoughts about stimuli giving rise to
distressed emotions. The theory is particularly well
developed in the case of depression, where clients
frequently experience unduly negative thoughts which
arise automatically even in response to stimuli which
might otherwise be experienced as positive.
Cognitive therapy aims to help the client to become
aware of thought distortions which are causing
psychological distress, and of behavioural patterns
which are reinforcing it, and to correct them. The
objective is not to correct every distortion in a
client's entire outlook -- and after all, virtually
everyone distorts reality in many ways -- just those
which may be at the root of distress. The therapist will
make every effort to understand experiences from the
client's point of view, and the client and therapist
will work collaboratively with an empirical spirit, like
scientists, exploring the client's thoughts, assumptions
and inferences. The therapist helps the client learn to
test these by checking them against reality and against
other assumptions.
|
