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The cognitive-behavioral direction studies how a person perceives a situation and thinks, helps a person develop a more realistic view of what is happening and hence more adequate behavior.
Experimental work in cognitive psychology, such as Piaget’s, provided clear scientific principles that could be applied in practice. Even the study of animal behavior showed that it is necessary to take into account their cognitive capabilities in order to understand how they learn.
In addition, there has been a growing awareness that behavioral therapists are unknowingly exploiting the cognitive capabilities of their patients. Desensitization, for example, uses the patient’s willingness and ability to imagine. Social skills training is not really conditioning: patients are not trained in specific responses to stimuli, but in a set of strategies needed to cope with situations of fear. The use of imagination, new ways of thinking and the application of strategies involve cognitive processes.
Therapy and personality development in the cognitive-behavioral direction
Supporters of the cognitive-behavioral direction proceed from the fact that:
A person builds his behavior on the basis of his ideas about what is happening. The way a person sees himself, people and life depends on his way of thinking, and his thinking depends on how a person was taught to think. When a person uses negative, ineffective or inadequate thinking, he has erroneous or ineffective ideas and hence — erroneous or ineffective behavior and the resulting problems. In the cognitive-behavioral direction, a person is not treated, but taught to think better, which gives a better life.
If a person is used to seeing himself as a victim, he behaves like a victim. Having learned to see himself as the author of his life, he begins to behave more actively and responsibly. See →
Psychotherapeutic approaches within the cognitive-behavioral direction
The main approaches in the cognitive-behavioral direction are:
- Cognitive Therapy by Aaron Beck
- life skills counseling by Richard Nelson-Jones
- multimodal consulting by Arnold Lazarus
- psycholinguistic method of Gennady Shichko
- Rational-emotional-behavioral therapy by A. Ellis
- social-cognitive approach of Albert Bandura
- behavior therapy by Mikhail Pokrass
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