Re:serious impulse disorder

Jose,
I am a 3rd year graduate student in clinical psychology. While I haven't seen clients with "impulse disorders" as of yet, I'm pretty sure that cognitive therapy would involve...

1) Instruction in the cognitive model. Namely, your client is involved with situations, which lead to automatic thoughts which then result in her impulsive behavior.

2) keeping a log of situations, noting similarities and differences in her thoughts and resulting actions at the time.

3) utilizing a process called "situational analysis" to highlight her control over the situations she is in.

Cognitive therapy doesn't really allow room for "Impulsive Actions", according to the model all of our actions and feelings are determined by thoughts that precede them. Your client has to think "I'm going to hit my boyfriend" before she takes that action. Intervening on the thought level should interrupt that action.

While I can't remember the citation for "situational analysis", a great book for cognitive therapy in general is Judith Beck's "Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond" - Guilford Press. In addition, if you are interested in cognitive behavioral couples therapy, an excellent primer is "Cognitive Behavioral Marital Therapy" by Baucom & Epstein.

Hope this helps some...
Stephan

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