Page 256 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Guidance and Counseling

Notes The therapist takes an active part in structuring the sessions to begin with. As progress is made, and
clients grasp the principles they find helpful, they take more and more responsibility for the content
of sessions. So by the end, the client feels empowered to continue working independently.

Group sessions
Cognitive behavioral therapy is not a miracle cure. The therapist needs to have considerable expertise
- and the client must be prepared to be persistent, open and brave. Not everybody will benefit, at
least not to full recovery, in a short space of time. It’s unrealistic to expect too much.
At the moment, experts know quite a lot about people who have relatively clear-cut problems. They
know much less about how the average person may do - somebody, perhaps, who has a number of
problems that are less clearly defined. Sometimes, therapy may have to go on longer to do justice to
the number of problems and to the length of time they’ve been around. One fact is also clear,
though. CBT is rapidly developing. All the time, new ideas are being researched to deal with the
more difficult aspects of people’s problems.

23.6 Process of Cognitive Approach

How cognitive behavioral therapy approach works is complex. There are several possible theories
about how it works, and clients often have their own views. Perhaps there is no one explanation.
But CBT probably works in a number of ways at the same time. Some it shares with other therapies,
some are specific to CBT. The following illustrate the ways in which CBT can work.

Learning coping skills
CBT tries to teach people skills for dealing with their problems. Someone with anxiety may learn
that avoiding situations helps to fan their fears. Confronting fears in a gradual and manageable way
helps give the person faith in their own ability to cope. Someone who is depressed may learn to
record their thoughts and look at them more realistically. This helps them to break the downward
spiral of their mood. Someone with long-standing problems in relating to other people may learn to
check out their assumptions about other people’s motivation, rather than always assuming the
worst.

Changing behaviors and beliefs
A new strategy for coping can lead to more lasting changes to basic attitudes and ways of behaving.
The anxious client may learn to avoid avoiding things. He or she may also find that anxiety is not
as dangerous as they assumed. Someone who’s depressed may come to see themselves as an ordinary
member of the human race, rather than inferior and fatally flawed. Even more basically, they may
come to have a different attitude to their thoughts - that thoughts are just thoughts, and nothing
more.

A new form of relationship
One-to-one CBT brings the client into a kind of relationship they may not have had before. The
collaborative’ style means that they are actively involved in changing. The therapist seeks their
views and reactions, which then shape the way the therapy progresses. The person may be able to
reveal very personal matters, and to feel relieved, because no-one judges them. He or she arrives at
decisions in an adult way, as issues are opened up and explained. Each individual is free to make
his or her own way, without being directed. Some people will value this experience as the most
important aspect of therapy.

Solving life problems
The methods of CBT may be useful because the client solves problems that may have been long-
standing and stuck. Someone anxious may have been in a repetitive and boring job, lacking the

250 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY