THEORY
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT):
- Based on the assumption that depression is caused by the way the patient views themselves and the world.
- It is therefore assumed that working with the client to teach them to identify maladaptive thought processes and beliefs, and to replace these with more adaptive thoughts and beliefs, will reduce emotional distress and depression.
STUDY
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT):
REBT is a type of CBT, developed by Ellis (who also devised the ABC model). CBT works using a variation of Ellis's ABC Model, known as THE ABCDE MODEL:
- In response to the activating event (A),
- The client is taught to challenge the abnormal, self-defeating beliefs (B),
- Which lead to unhealthy, emotional and behavioural consequences (C).
- This is done by disputing (D) the self-defeating beliefs (B),
- Which then leads to positive effects (E).
- Logical Disputing - Challenging irrational beliefs that do not follow logically from the information available (EG: does thinking this way make sense?)
- Empirical Disputing - Identifying when self-defeating beliefs are not consistent with reality/the evidence (EG: where is the proof that this belief is accurate?)
- Pragmatic Disputing - Emphasises the lack of usefulness in self-defeating beliefs (EG: how likely is it that this belief will help me?)
- Effective disputing changes self-defeating beliefs into more rational ones so that the individual can move from catastrophising (EG: I messed up my whole future by failing that exam) to more rational interpretations of events (EG: I failed my exam, but if I work harder, next time I'll nail it).
- This helps them to feel better and to cope better in the future.
- As therapy goes on, the client learns to effectively identify, challenge and change their own irrational beliefs.
- Clients are also asked to complete homework assignments between therapy sessions designed to test irrational beliefs and put rational beliefs into practise.
- Homework assignments often include behavioural activation, which is encouraging the depressed person to engage in enjoyable activities, such as in the example below. This helps them to provide further evidence that negative beliefs are irrational.
- EG: Your homework assignment may be to invite a friend over to dinner, to see how the friend responds. If they accept, and appear pleased, this provides evidence that the belief "Nobody like me" is irrational, and helps the client to come to the more rational conclusion that their friend does like them.