Cognitive Behavioral and Reality therapies

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1. Compare and contrast Cognitive/Cognitive Behavioral and Reality therapies

Cognitive/Cognitive Behavioral

The basic assumptions of basic assumptions of Cognitive/Cognitive Behavioral therapies include:

+ "Humans are born with potential for rational thinking but also crooked thinking
+ Fall victim to irrational beliefs
+ Therapy is a process of reeducation" (http://home.earthlink.net/~andyda/psych/personality/baret.html)

CBT places a large emphasis on cognitions and beliefs as the source of human problems and pathology. "Emotional disturbances are believed to be rooted in childhood but perpetuated through reindoctrination in the here and now." (www.rational.org.nz/prof/docs/Intro-CBT.pdf) So, the emotions and behaviors follow from those beliefs. In other words, people view themselves and the world around them at three levels: inferences, evaluations, and core beliefs. Thus, the central tenet of cognitive therapy is that thoughts mediate between event and emotions. The event elicits a thought, which might be an evaluative judgment of some kind that elicits a certain emotion. In other words, it is not the event itself that elicits an emotional response directly, but our evaluation of or thought (i.e. He ignore me. He must not like me. I am not a worthwhile person") about that event. (counsellingresource.com/types/cognitive-therapy/index.html)

According to this therapy, pathology is rooted in the clients irrational thinking and irrational beliefs (http://home.earthlink.net/~andyda/psych/personality/baret.html) An 'irrational' belief blocks a person from achieving their goals, They "create extreme emotions that persist", causing the client ...