How Can a Busy Therapist Improve Their Skills in CBT?

June 26, 2016 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

I sometimes get questions from therapists who realize that their grad school training didn’t really equip them to use CBT under real-world conditions. With the personal and professional demands we all face it isn’t simple, but there are a number of good options for improving CBT skills once you’re in practice. . The first options […]

CBT in the Real World

April 5, 2016 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

In the past few months I’ve seen several comments about how CBT is “constrained” by treatment protocols. Apparently, some practitioners have the impression that CBT is “cookbook” approach where the therapist takes a manualized treatment protocol and imposes it on the client without tailoring it to the client’s needs. They seem to think that if […]

Let Me Sleep On It: CBT for Insomnia

February 29, 2016 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

The February, 2016 edition of Consumer Reports recommends CBT as an alternative to medication for chronic insomnia (see https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/08/how-did-you-sleep-last-night/index.htm for some of what they say about insomnia). CBT for insomnia (CBT-I) combines “standard” CBT with cognitive and behavioral interventions specifically focused on insomnia. There is a substantial body of research supporting the effectiveness of CBT-I […]

Is the Effectiveness of CBT Fading?

August 21, 2015 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

A recent meta-analysis published under the provocative title “The Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as an Anti-Depressive Treatment is Falling: A Meta-Analysis” (Johnsen & Friborg, 2015) has provoked considerable discussion (and some gloating on the Internet by those who are opposed to CBT). The authors computed the effect-sizes found in 70 studies of Cognitive Behavioral […]

Schemas, Assumptions, and Beliefs, Oh My!

February 5, 2014 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

The term “schema” has been popular in cognitive-behavioral circles in recent years with theorists discussing the role of schemas in a range of disorders, researchers studying schemas, and clinicians proposing a range of interventions for modifying problematic schemas. The terms “schema”, “core belief”, “irrational belief”, “underlying assumption”, “dysfunctional belief”, etc. have sometimes been used interchangeably […]

Interesting Study of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy vs CBT in the Treatment of Bulimia

December 6, 2013 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

An interesting study has been published recently that compares psychoanalytic psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of bulimia (abstract of the study). I thought it worth noting here.

Cultural Differences and Cognitive Therapy

July 10, 2013 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy

The question of how cultural differences impact the practice of CBT has been highlighted by a special series on cultural considerations in using acceptance and mindfulness-based treatments in Cognitive and Behavioral Practice (February, 2013) and a special series on cultural competence in the Behavior Therapist (June, 2013). Back in the old days, many Americans were […]

The Therapeutic Relationship in CBT

May 16, 2013 by  
Filed under Cognitive Therapy, Soapbox

In a recent online discussion, a colleague wrote “Perhaps psychodynamic therapists have relied too heavily on the relationship at the expense of client skill-building, while the opposite tends to be true for CBT therapists.”  This is a common criticism of CBT, but is there reason to believe that CBT therapists emphasize client skill-building at the […]