______________________ Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Theory, Techniques, and Applications, 3rd Edition
OVERVIEW OF THE COGNITIVE MODEL
• Mind reading (assuming one knows what others are thinking) • Fortune telling (predicting that the future will result in negative events) • Catastrophizing (believing that events will ultimately result in unbearable outcomes)
• Labeling (assigning globally negative labels to self, others, or the world) • Discounting positives (overlooking positive events/traits as trivial) • Negative filtering (focusing on negatives and rarely noticing positives) • Overgeneralizing (assuming that a negative outcome will occur in many situations after having experienced a negative result following only one incident) • Dichotomous thinking (viewing self, others, or the world in all-or-nothing terms) • “Shoulds” (interpreting events on the basis of how one believes they “should” be as opposed to focusing on what the events actually are) • Personalizing (assigning a disproportionate amount of blame to oneself) • Blaming (assigning disproportionate blame to others without taking responsibility for oneself) • Making unfair comparisons (setting unrealistic or unfair standards for self or others) • Regret orientation (focusing on what one could have done better in the past to the exclusion of focusing on how one is doing now) • “What if?” (ruminating about what could happen) • Emotional reasoning (allowing emotions to set one’s perception of reality, such as “I feel anxious; therefore, this must be a dangerous situation”) • Inability to disconfirm evidence that contradicts negative thoughts (rejecting evidence that shows one’s negative thoughts are unrealistic) • Judgment focus (judging self or others in harsh or absolute terms)
Adapted From Beck, J. S. (2020). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond (3 rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Box 1
Technique: Considering Potential Outcomes (Leahy, 2017) The therapist assists the client to test an automatic thought by brainstorming potential outcomes. Example: C: I’ll never pass the quiz. T: If you were to fail the quiz, what might some possible outcomes be? C: I might fail the course and get kicked out of school. T: What else? C: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe my parents would be mad at me. It’d probably make me more motivated to study for the next exam, I guess [laughs]. So, I might study harder and do OK in the class. T: So, failing the quiz doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll fail school?
C: No, it doesn’t, and even if I failed the class, it doesn’t necessarily mean I will fail out of school. I just always think of the worst. Technique: Costs and Benefits of the Thought (Leahy, 2017) The therapist works with the client to determine the costs and benefits associated with maintaining a particular pattern of automatic thoughts. Example: T: So, you had the thought, “I shouldn’t go out with my friends because it will make my boyfriend jealous.” What are the benefits of making choices that are consistent with that thought? C: My boyfriend will be happy. T: How will you feel? C: Resentful. T: What are the costs associated with making choices that are consistent with that thought?
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