Background and Development of Cognitive Psychotherapy Pt4
For example, a client may have the automatic thought that people will ignore him. This thought may make him feel unhappy and even depressed. He may ignore others rather than risk them ignoring him, so he would then feel bad. He must then test the validity of his automatic thought by speaking to those he would expect to ignore him to see if they respond. If his test proves that his previous thinking was faulty, then he must learn the new thought that people will not ignore him. This new realistic thought changes the emotion of depression and allows him to feel good and to continue reinforcing the new belief by more practice. The client can be taught to identify his own dysfunctional automatic thoughts and to change them, so he becomes his own therapist.
Although Beck developed the concept of cognitive therapy, others were working on somewhat parallel lines. Ellis developed Rational-Emotive Therapy, which is a prime example of cognitive-behavioural approach. It is a more directive form than Beck’s collaborative approach which uses the Socratic method to elicit the counters to irrational thoughts from the client. This is teaching the client to become his own therapist rather than letting him remain independent
