Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy
The cognitive psychology It is a branch of psychology that deals with the processes through which the individual obtains knowledge of the world and becomes aware of his environment, as well as its results.
Cognitive models pay special attention to cognitions, understanding by these in a broad sense to ideas, personal constructs, beliefs, images, attributions of meaning or meaning, expectations... and so studies basic processes such as memory, attention, concept formation, information processing, conflict resolution, etc.
Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Therapy in Context
Modern cognitive psychology has been formed under the influence of related disciplines, such as information processing, artificial intelligence and the language science. But this branch of psychology is not only an experimental approach, but has been put into practice in different areas: learning, Social psychology wave psychotherapy. The latter is called cognitive therapy.
It is important to distinguish between cognitive psychology
Y cognitive psychotherapy, because despite the fact that both are related, the most prominent authors of cognitive psychology made their main developments far from psychotherapeutic centers. In contrast, cognitive psychotherapy designed specific methods (treatments) based on some developments in cognitive psychology (cognitive science), since researchers Clinicians soon saw the usefulness of these principles when applied to different people with different problems to improve their quality of life, solve human problems and try mental disorders.The pioneers in cognitive therapy: Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis
The pioneers in using the bases of cognitive science in a systematic way for the treatment of psychological disorders were psychologists Albert ellis Y Aaron Beck. The first called his model of therapeutic application "Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy”(TREC) and the second called his method of therapy“Cognitive Therapy”.
It is important to note that there are different models of cognitive therapy, and these are two of the best known due to their great practical utility. Cognitive therapies are not "techniques", but applied science, so they usually consist of a more or less defined method to achieve objectives according to their initial theoretical approach.
Aaron Beck's model basically focuses on automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions, and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy by Albert Ellis is mainly focused on beliefs irrational. Between the two there are similarities, but also differences, for example: Beck's Cognitive Therapy is based on collaborative empiricism; instead, Ellis uses Socratic dialogue or debate as the main therapeutic tool.
Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy
The main idea of Cognitive Therapy is that people suffer because of their interpretation of events and not because of the events themselves. Therefore, Aaron Beck, interested in the treatment of depression, developed a model for the treatment of this pathology that he later extended to other disorders.
Beck's model, and also Ellis's, are an important part of the strategies used within cognitive-behavioral therapy well, through the cognitive restructuring, an individual is capable of modifying the mode of interpretation and subjective assessment of the facts and situations that he experiences, and of this In this way, he is encouraged to alter disordered thinking patterns and to see himself and the world more realistically and adaptive.
This type of cognitive (or cognitive-behavioral) therapies are called "relational or cognitive restructuring therapies", but there are also other types of cognitive therapies such as: skills training therapies to face and handle situations or therapies for resolution of problems.
Cognitive organization according to Beck's model
The model proposed by Beck states that faced with a situation, individuals do not respond automatically, but rather before issuing a emotional or behavioral response perceive, classify, interpret, evaluate and assign meaning to the stimulus based on their previous assumptions or cognitive schemas (also called core beliefs).
Cognitive schemas
In Beck's theory, lCognitive processes are the mechanisms for coding, storing and retrieving information existing in cognitive structures (schemes). Therefore, among the cognitive processes are included: perception, attention, memory and interpretation. In the processing of information errors may occur in any of its phases that have as a consequence an alteration or distortion in the assessment and interpretation of the facts, what the author calls "distortions cognitive ”.
The cognitive structures for organizing information in memory are the schemes, which represent the set of previous experiences and act as templates that direct attention, influence the interpretation of events and facilitate memory.
For Beck, “schemas are stable cognitive patterns that constitute the basis for the regularity of interpretations of reality. People use their schemas to locate, encode, differentiate and ascribe meanings to the world's data ”. In other words, Schemas are subjective mental constructions, more or less stable, that act as filters when the individual perceives the world..
Schemas come largely from previous (generally early) learning experiences and can remain latent until activated by a significant event that interacts with they. This is one of the most important concepts that cognitive psychology has contributed, and although it was originally introduced by Frederick bartlett to refer to processes related to memory in the social context, and was also used, among others, by Jean piaget In education, Beck (along with Ellis) introduced him to psychotherapy.
The beliefs
The beliefs they are the contents of the schemes, and they are the direct result of the relationship between reality and them. They are everything you believe in, they are like internal maps that allow us to make sense of the world, are built and generalized through experience.
Beck distinguishes two types of beliefs:
Core or nuclear beliefs: They are presented as absolute, lasting and global propositions about oneself, others or the world. For example, "I am incompetent." They represent the deepest cognitive level, they are difficult to change, they give the sense of identity and they are idiosyncratic.
Peripheral beliefs: They are influenced by the nuclear, therefore, they are located between the latter and the cognitive products or automatic thoughts. They consist of attitudes, rules, and assumptions (or assumptions). Therefore, they influence the way of seeing the situation, and that vision influences how an individual feels, acts or thinks.
Cognitive products
The cognitive products make reference to the thoughts and images that result from the interaction of the information provided by the situation, the schemas and beliefs and the cognitive processes. The contents of cognitive products are usually more easily accessible to consciousness than cognitive schemas and processes.
The explanatory model of Beck's depression
For Beck, psychological disorders derive from cognitive distortions (errors in cognitive processes), which are wrong ways of thinking that appear in the form of automatic thoughts (cognitive products) in certain situations, and that cause negative emotional states and behaviors inadequate. Therefore, these cognitive distortions are caused by irrational beliefs or personal assumptions learned in the past, which unconsciously condition the perception and interpretation of the past, present and future.
People who suffer depression They become vulnerable to certain situations, and it is important to understand that this theory does not suggest that cognitions are the cause of depression or other emotional disorder. What is really postulated is the primacy of symptoms: the activation of negative schemas and the consequent cognitive distortions, would be the first link in the chain of symptoms depressive
The cognitive triad in people with depression
When a person is faced with a certain situation, the schema is the basis for transforming data into cognitions. Since the schemes that are activated in a certain situation will determine how that person responds, in people who suffer from a depressive disorder inappropriate schemes will be activated.
Therefore, the first depressive symptom is the activation of cognitive schemes related to the vision of oneself, the world and the future. People with negative schemas or a tendency to make processing errors will be more likely to suffer from depressive disorders.
The cognitive triad refers to three characteristic schemes that induce the depressed individual to perceive himself, the world and the future from a negative point of view. The rest of the depressive symptoms that he suffers are derived from these three cognitive patterns.
The characteristic pattern suffered by depressed people, and which Beck calls the depressive triad, consists of a negative view of:
Itself: People with depression are often considered deficient and useless. They attribute the mistakes they make to a physical, mental or moral defect of their own, and they think that others will reject them.
Of the world: They feel as socially defeated and are not up to the demands, nor do they have the ability to overcome obstacles.
From the future: The person who suffers from depression thinks that this situation cannot be changed, so it will always remain that way.
Cognitive distortions
The negative schemes activated in depressed individuals lead them to make a series of errors in the processing of information that facilitate thebiases and they allow the depressive to maintain the validity of her beliefs. Beck listed a number of cognitive distortions, they are as follows:
Selective abstraction: it is about paying attention to a single aspect or detail of the situation. The positive aspects are often ignored, giving more importance to the negative aspects.
Dichotomous thinking: events are highly valued: good / bad, black / white, all / nothing, etc.
Arbitrary inference: consists of drawing conclusions from a situation that are not supported by the facts, even when the evidence is contrary to the conclusion.
Overgeneralization: consists of drawing without sufficient basis a general conclusion from a particular fact.
Magnification and Minimization: tendency to exaggerate the negatives of a situation, event or quality of one's own and to minimize the positives.
Personalization: refers to the habit of relating the facts of the environment with oneself, showing susceptibility.
Catastrophic vision: anticipate events and, among the different options, think that the worst will always happen.
You should: consists of maintaining rigid and demanding rules about how things should happen.
Global labels: It consists of putting global labels to ourselves or to others without taking into account other nuances.
Culpability: it consists of assigning oneself or others all responsibility for the events, ignoring other factors that contribute to them.
Automatic thoughts
Therefore, when these characteristic schemes of depressed people are activated, cognitive products will be maladaptive and negative.
The automatic thoughts They are the internal dialogues, thoughts or images that appear in a given situation, and patients usually consider them true, undistorted statements. These display a number of characteristics and are as follows:
They are specific messages or propositions related to a specific situation
They will always be believed, regardless of whether they are irrational or not.
Are learned
They spontaneously enter consciousness, dramatizing and exaggerating the negative of the situation
They are not easy to detect or control, as they appear in the flow of internal dialogue