AARON BECK 1921 - Cognitive Model - … OH... · AARON BECK 1921 - Cognitive Model Evidence Based Treatment (EBT). Interventions for which systematic empirical research has provided

AARON BECK1921 -

Cognitive Model

Evidence Based Treatment (EBT).Interventions for which systematic empirical research hasprovided evidence of statistically significant effectivenessas treatments for specific problems.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Personality is an expression of a conglomerate of basic[thoughts]/schemas (i.e., rules that govern informationprocessing and behavior)

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People respond to situations based on how thesesituations are consciously and automatically evaluatedin terms of relevant underlying beliefs.

THINKING DISTORTIONS

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things inblack-and-white categories. If your performance fallsshort of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negativeevent as a never- ending pattern of defeat.

3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negativedetail and dwell on it exclusively so that yourvision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop ofink that discolors the entire beaker ofwater.

4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You rejectpositive experiences by insisting they "don't count" forsome reason or other. In this way you can maintain anegative belief that is contradicted by your everydayexperiences.

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5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negativeinterpretation though there are no definite facts thatconvincingly support conclusion.

a. Mind reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone isreacting negatively to you and you don't bother to checkthis out.

b. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that thingswill turn out badly, and you feel convinced that yourprediction is an already-established fact.

6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZlNG) ORMINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance ofthings (such as your goof-up or someone else'sachievement), or you inappropriately shrink things untilthey appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the otherfellow's imperfections). This is also called the “binoculartrick.”

7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that yournegative emotions necessarily reflect the way thingsreally are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”

8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivateyourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be

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whipped and punished before you could be expected todo anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders.The emotional consequence is guilt. When you directshould statements toward others, you feel anger,frustration and resentment.

9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extremeform of overgeneralization. Instead of describing yourerror, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I'm aloser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you thewrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He's agoddamn louse.”

Mislabeling involves describing an event with languagethat is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the causeof some negative external event which in fact you werenot primarily responsible for.

11. SELF-WORTH: You make an arbitrary decision thatin order to accept yourself as worthy, okay, or to simply,feel good about your- self, you have to perform in acertain way; usually most or all the time. (Chris Morley)

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Evaluation of the particular demands of a situationprecedes and triggers an adaptive (or maladaptive)strategy [behavioral traits or tendencies]. Cognitions (verbal or pictorial “events” in a person’sstream of consciousness) are based on attitudes orassumptions (schemas), developed from previousexperiences.

Beck, Rush, Shaw, Emergy 1979

The psychological sequence progresses fromevaluation to affective and motivational arousal, andfinally to selection, and implementation of a relevantstrategy. We regard the basic structures (schemas)upon which these cognitive, affective, andmotivational processes are dependent as thefundamental units of personality.

Beck, Freeman, et al. 1990

Automatic thoughts.

Stimuli----->Automatic thought----->Affect---->BehaviorSituation—>Negative thought--->NegativeAffect—>Response

Introspection, i.e., the examination of one’s thinkingprocesses can be learned

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Peripheral Statement

Personality “traits” identified by adjective such as“dependent,” “withdrawn,” “arrogant,” orextraverted” may be conceptualized as the overtexpression of underling belief or schematic structures. By assigning meanings to events, the cognitivestructures start a chain reaction culminating in thekinds of overt behavior (strategies) that are attributedto personality traits.

Beck, Freeman, et al. 1990

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