preview

Cognitive Psychology : Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Better Essays

Medications are easy way out-it’s a form of escape that suppresses the illness rather than cure it. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, on the other hand, is a guided education technique that teaches one how to live a healthy lifestyle by understanding and overcoming their fear, thus curing the illness from it’s root. Cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of short-term psychotherapy was originally designed to treat depression, but over the years have been used for a number of mental illnesses including anxiety, mood swings, substance abuse, personality disorder and some others, showing promising results. As the name suggests, it’s a combination of both cognitive and behavioral principles that acknowledges that some behaviors emerge based on prior conditioning from the environment and external or internal stimuli, and cannot be controlled through rational thought and/or medication. The efficacy of programs that utilize cognitive behavioral therapy have been researched and questioned over time. However, more often than not, it’s believed that as stated by DeRubeis, Siegle, & Hollon (2008), “cognitive therapy is as efficacious as antidepressant medications at treating depression, and it seems to reduce the risk of relapse even after its discontinuation.” (p. 1) This is because cognitive behavioral therapy and anti-depressants utilize similar neural mechanisms to treat distinctive individuals and target specific disorders instead of an overall cure. This paper discusses how this

Get Access