Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
Beck’s Cognitive Therapy (CT) Meichenbaum’s Cognitive
Behavior Modification (CBM)

Christian Ranche and Luke Yap

Psychology 265: Psychotherapy
First Semester, AY 2019-2020
From Behavior Theory Comes…
§ Albert Ellis’ REBT
§ Aaron T. Beck’s CT
§ Donald Meichenbaum’s CBT

§ These are the more prominent

cognitive behavioral approaches,
however, there are over 20 therapies
that are considered “cognitive” or
“cognitive behavioral”
 History of REBT
§ Developed by Albert Ellis (1955)
§ Incorporated cognition, emotion, and
behavior into techniques
§ Maintains that cognition governs emotions,
feelings (i.e., “We feel what we think”)
§ Considered “active-directive” therapeutic
process that focuses on client
empowerment and education
§ Goal is to get clients to feel and think more
positively, thus attaining their personal goals
 History of CT
§ Developed by Aaron Beck
§ Clients misinterpret certain life
situations, which leads to cognitive
distortions or “logical errors”
§ Logical errors lead to emotional
difficulties by distorting reality to
validate previously held negative
beliefs
 History of CBM
§ Developed by Donald Meichenbaum
§ Focus on changing client’s self-
verbalizations
§ In order to change, clients must listen
to their “self-speak” and notice how
they think, feel, and behave
 Basic Principles
REBT CT CBM
A-B-C-D-E-F model Logical errors lead to Clients must become aware
emotional difficulties of how they think, feel, and
behave and how this impacts
others around them

Irrational beliefs Faulty thinking, incorrect negative scripts impact

inferences, fantasy vs. reality behavior

Thoughts are characterized Arbitrary inferences,

by Musts, Shoulds, and selective abstraction,
Oughts overgeneralization,
magnification/minimalization,
perosnalization,
(mis)labeling, polarized
thinking
 Role of Therapist
REBT CT CBM

Therapist as teacher is Therapist collaborates Therapist as teacher

directive, with client to help
confrontational, them discover validity
persuasive. of cognitions
(collaborative
empiricism).
Therapeutic Emphasis is on a Working relationship
relationship is not as therapeutic
necessary (too much relationship
“babying” leads to
dependence on
therapist)
 Therapeutic Process
REBT
Help client’s identify
irrational oughts, shoulds,
musts
Help client understand their
role in maintaining irrational
beliefs and help clients
modify thinking
Challenge clients to develop
rational thinking
CT
Clients take an active role in
therapy
Client and therapist
collaborate to form testable
hypotheses and design
“experiments” to test
hypotheses
Client is encouraged to self-
discover faulty thinking and
behavior
CBM
Self-instructional training
that focuses on helping
clients become aware of self-
talk
Clients are taught to make
positive self-statements and
modify self-instruction in
order to cope with stress
Cognitive restructuring
1. Self-observation
2. New internal dialogue
3. New skills
 Significant Contributions
REBT CT CBM

Value in confronting Highly successful with Focus on stress

self-destructive ideas depressed and inoculation training and
and beliefs patients with anxiety self-instruction training
successful with variety of
disorder
populations w/ specific
problems
Putting insight into Provides a structured, Demystifies
action through active, and focused therapeutic process by
homework approach to explore teaching client through
client’s inner world a working relationship
w/ client
Teaches client to be Techniques from
their own therapist various theories can
be integrated
 Limitations of Cognitive-
Behavioral Therapy
qCultural considerations
qTheory is Eurocentric in that it relies heavily on
“logic” as defined by Western principles

§ If a client comes from a culture that does not

encourage direct confrontation

§ If a client’s culture focuses on “being” rather

than “thinking”

§ ???