Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy (CBT) Classes
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) assumes that changing thinking leads to change in behavior. The goal of cognitive behavioral therapy is not to diagnose a person with a particular disease, but to look at the person as a whole and decide what needs to be fixed. The basic steps in a cognitive-behavioral assessment include:
Step 1: Identify critical behaviors
Step 2: Determine whether critical behaviors are excesses or deficits
Step 3: Evaluate critical behaviors for frequency, duration, or intensity (obtain a baseline)
Step 4: If excess, attempt to decrease frequency, duration, or intensity of behaviors; if deficits, attempt to increase behaviors.
Therapists use CBT techniques to help individuals challenge their patterns and beliefs and replace "errors in thinking such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and catastrophizing" with "more realistic and effective thoughts, thus decreasing emotional distress and self-defeating behavior." These errors in thinking are known as cognitive distortions.
CBT has six phases:
Assessment
Reconceptualization;
Skills acquisition;
Skills consolidation and application training;
Generalization and maintenance;
Post-treatment assessment follow-up.