In order to diagnose deficiencies, create treatment plans, and find solutions for cognitive distortions, CBT requires client collaboration. CBT has become more popular in mental health. It is used to help patients overcome their restrictive beliefs and attitudes. The following sections will discuss how clinicians could use cost-benefit analyses, activity logs and continuum development to treat three types of patients.
Continuum development
To challenge clients’ beliefs and improve their understanding, therapists use continuum work in CBT (Simmons & Griffiths 2018, 2018). Therapists often use this method to challenge the rigid assumptions most CBT clients believe are permanent. Melisa is resentful and angry after her divorce from her husband. He is seen as a terrible husband and she becomes obsessed with the notion that Melisa’s ex-husband’s conduct is unacceptable. This strategy is used to convince her husband that she should forgive her.
The therapy process will use a linear approach to assess the client’s mood to help her improve it. Melisa may be asked by the therapist what her ideal mood is if she didn’t feel resentful about her past actions. His In Particular, the first would be indicative of her worst case scenario, which means that she is a weak and lazy mother. This would represent her desired values and happiness. Melisa, for instance, would like to forgive but doesn’t know how. The therapist could help her decide the best way forward.
Next, the therapist asked Melissa to list the worst of her perceived negative behaviors. Next, the therapist would ask Melissa to consider a scenario in which her perception of her character was less important.