Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the article, "Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: Reflections on the Evolution of a Therapeutic Orientation" by M.R. Goldfried, which presents an account of the evolution of cognitive-behavior therapy over the past 35 years, since it began with the introduction of cognition into behavior therapy in the mid-1960s. It examines how, as cognitive-behavior therapists became more experienced clinically and recognized that clients did not always engage in clearly reportable internal dialogues, the schema construct was used to understand more about clients' implicit meaning structures. The distinction between cognitive-behavior therapy and cognitive therapy is discussed, and the importance of activating emotional experiencing in the clinical change-process is underscored.

From the Paper:

"Goldfried discusses many justifications for the addition of cognition in behavior therapy and even discusses situations of therapy sessions that institute them. Psychologists came to realize that patients might not have the capacity to store, encode, and retrieve information needed for participation in therapy with a clear "internal dialogue". Thus, establishing an information-processing model, called a "schema", helped therapists understand the problematic functioning of patients having difficulties such as inaccurate classification of events, selective attention, and so on. Goldfried goes on to define a schema as "a cognitive representation of individuals' past experiences with other people, situations, and themselves, which helps them construe events within that particular aspect of their life"."

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