What sets Cognitive Behavioral Therapy apart from the different approaches?
What distinguishes cognitive behavioral therapy from other forms of psychological help is the aforementioned goal orientation. While a number of “competitive” techniques focus on creating an intimate relationship between patient and psychotherapist, CBT additionally focuses on educating the patient about her the interaction of her thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. CBT requires clients to perform tasks and to learn helpful responses to scenarios in which individuals find themselves in. In other words, the patient is engaged in the therapeutic process. The therapist leads the conversation in a structured manner to help the client understand and solve her problems in a novel way.
In addition to the concretization of aspirations, cognitive behavioral psychotherapy differs from other approaches in its duration. In many cases, the patient knows from the beginning how many meetings the therapist will devote to her. Patients will usually participate in short-term therapy, unlike those who attend sessions in, for example, psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy.
Another important difference is the focus on the present without dwelling too much on or analyzing the past. Cognitive behavioral therapy assumes that no matter how long a person has been engaged in maladaptive behavioral patterns, he or she can always change. What is required is that the client become aware of his or her cognitive and behavioral responses to situations and commits to changing them accordingly. This allows for effective change without necessarily having to dig deep in a patient’s past experiences.
What is the focus of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
A characteristic feature of cognitive behavioral therapy is the focus on human behavior. During meetings with the patient the specialist examines her emotions and thoughts, but not in the context of subconscious or unconscious feelings that have their source in the traumatic past. The object of analysis is what can be seen, and not what in other approaches (especially in psychodynamic psychotherapy) comes from memory.
A qualified cognitive behavioral psychotherapist understands the importance of a person’s past on their current behavior and thought patterns, though he also understands that it is not necessary for the patient to relive these experiences in order to change their patterns. What matters is the interpretation of these patterns, the role assigned to them, and the meaning that a person gives them. Our way of perceiving and understanding the surrounding reality changes over the years, often taking on distorted forms. People who come to the therapist’s office have developed interpretations that often cause suffering. This skewed evaluation negatively affects the patient’s life. As a result, the person is stuck in a cage of his own fears and pain. He struggles with memories, repeatedly returning to traumatic situations, which causes further anguish. The task of a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist is to inhibit this process.
