Beck Cognitive Therapy What is it?

Throughout our article we will be talking a little about the beck's cognitive therapy, which was developed to treat depression that originates from depression. She continues reading to find out more.

Beck's Cognitive Therapy What is it?

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that is concerned with the processes through which an individual becomes aware of their environment and has knowledge of the world and its outcomes.

We well know that Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy is somewhat difficult to understand. However, here we will try to explain everything in an understandable way. In this aspect, the psychologist focuses his model on the personal suffering of an individual by the particular analysis of the facts, but not of these in themselves, therefore Beck came to show great interest in how this interpretation plays an important role. inside the depression.

It should be noted that the first to use the bases of cognitive science systematically to treat psychological disorders were Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. The first called his model of therapeutic application "Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy" (REBT) while Beck called his method of therapy "Cognitive Therapy". For this point we must clarify that there are several models of cognitive therapy, but these are two best known due to their excellent practical uses.

What is Beck's Cognitive Therapy?

To treat depression and other disorders, Beck discusses cognitive restructuring. It is about ensuring that the patient has the ability to modify the models that she uses to interpret, for this reason she studies the situations experienced and the subjective assessment of the facts. Since she knows the schemes with which the patient works, in therapy she works on them so that they lose firmness.

Through this treatment, the individual visualizes himself and finds schemes to observe the world in a different way and in a more beneficial way for his health.

If we observe a person who has erroneous and mistaken thoughts in his way of interpreting what happens in his day to day, all these thoughts and interpretations that the person makes over time, become so constant that, finally, they become stereotyped and tense ways about their own perception of what happens to them and their behavior.

We can take as the best example, that of those people who suffer from depression, these types of people have constant negative thoughts about themselves and very often they think about what their future will bring, since for them it will always be hopeless. Focusing only on your negative thoughts to the point of exaggeration and disregarding the positive aspects.

What is?

Although cognitive therapy was developed from the beginning to treat problems related to depression, over time designs were created based on the same theory that were used to treat other types of mental disorders and problems related to discomfort. emotional, such as anxiety.

Since this therapy shows that the behavior and emotions of the person are based on their way of perceiving their world, it was determined that the thoughts that a person has are directly related to those emotions and the behaviors that they manifest.

The psychological model proposed by Beck indicates that individuals do not respond automatically to a situation, but rather, before issuing an emotional or behavioral response, they evaluate, perceive, interpret, classify and assign a meaning to the stimulus in relation to their previous assumptions or cognitive schemes. Some of the most important points that describe Beck's therapy are:

cognitive schemes

This is based mainly on the structures that contain the mechanisms for encoding, storing and retrieving information. This includes memory, perception, interpretation, and attention, which means that it shows how you perceive something specific and how you interpret it.

cognitive organization

The model presented by Aaron Beck detects that the individual gives an interpreted and evaluated response to a certain situation, so that we do not act automatically. What Beck expresses is that, behind a large part of our behaviors, there is a specific style of processing information, based on our cognitive schemes that obtain a great influence based on this behavior.

cognitive products

With this, Beck refers to those thoughts that come from the interaction with the information provided by a specific situation. In addition to the fact that schemas, the cognitive organization itself and clearly beliefs also interact in this case. That is, the way an individual acts based on his way of perceiving the world and his way of being.

Beliefs

According to Aaron Beck, cognitive schemas are mainly made up of beliefs. It could be said that they are guides that allow each person to see the world, make sense of it and build structures through their experiences. Some are lasting, absolute, identitarian, nuclear and absolute; others, on the other hand, are peripheral, in that case they would include all those that are created by the circumstances and the emotional state of the individual at a certain moment.

Beck's Cognitive Triad

For this point, it was explained graphically by means of a triangular figure since this is how the fact that thoughts influence emotions, emotions influence behavior and vice versa is represented.

Which means that there is indeed a reciprocal influence between the 3 parties. When an individual faces a given situation, the schema is the basis for transforming data into cognitions. People with negative schemas or who tend to make certain processing errors will be more likely to experience depressive disorders; As Aaron Beck puts it:

“consists of three main cognitive patterns that lead the patient to view himself, his future, and his experiences in an idiosyncratic way”

To define an example, we have a patient who suffers from anxiety and who begins with certain thoughts such as: "I will return with an anxiety crisis", "I am not able to overcome this", "I will never feel good". With these types of thoughts, when they constantly manifest themselves, they provoke a reaction (emotion) that can be sadness and anguish, which will end up leading to acting in coherence with it and beginning to physically experience a panic attack (behavior).

In this way, if the person gets used to the fact that the same type of thoughts, emotions and behaviors are always triggered over time, these will become more and more solid and it will be more difficult to eradicate them.

Beck Cognitive Therapy Treatment Plan

The main objective that Beck presents about cognitive therapy is that the patient, together with the therapist, creates new experiences that allow him to attenuate those that have been established since childhood and that are negative for his way of feeling and acting. The fact of reforming the patient's belief is not done through a debate, but rather objective evidence is sought to examine her beliefs and from that a more positive reality is established through practical data.

For example, a person who has the false belief and has developed a phobia of entering a swimming pool since he thinks that if he enters it, he will surely get stuck in a grid and drown, you can argue and prove that the grids of the pools are safe and will not cause you problems.

Beginning

To describe our last point on this topic, and since we know a little more about the beck's cognitive therapy, we would be left to list the principles of cognitive therapy that are governed to treat depression and other disorders of the mood of an individual.

• Beck's first principle or cognitive triad: we have already developed this point previously, it is based mainly on the patient's way of thinking and the problems he presents in cognitive terms. That is, the illogical thoughts of the patient who presents are identified, as well as the actions that he carries out and that generate problems.
• Second: it is based on the relationship and alliance between the patient and the therapist.
• Third: it focuses on collaboration and active participation. It is proven that patients who show greater interaction during treatment have a 50% chance of finding the necessary help and thus solving their problems.
• Fourth: with this therapy we focus on achieving goals and it focuses on certain problems. Therefore, from the first session with the patient, the main problems must be established.
• Fifth: cognitive therapy is in the present. So the patient is shown what it is to act in the here and now and if he acts considering that. It also highlights how thoughts of the past or future affect present emotions.
• Sixth: this therapy is basically educational, since it aims to teach the patient to be their own therapist by teaching them to identify all those negative thoughts towards themselves, their irrational beliefs and where they come from in order to learn how to modify them and generate positive ideas.
• Seventh: This type of therapy tends to be limited. In other words, it is intended that the patient already shows improvements from the fourth session and that by the fourteenth session they already have enough tools to alleviate the symptoms they present, however, in all cases it will not be the same.
• Eighth: we come to the point of structured sessions. That is, they have a script and a logical order that must be followed to facilitate self-therapy for the patient, which allows the psychologist to pay attention to the most important points presented by the patient.
• Ninth: this therapy allows the patient to evaluate and analyze the dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors they have.

If you liked our article, we invite you to visit our website to find more interesting information such as How to improve interpersonal relationships? You should also remember that our article is for informational purposes only and we do not have the proper powers to make a diagnosis or recommend treatment. If you need help, do not hesitate to go to a psychologist who will provide you with the necessary information. We also leave you this informative video.