For and Against CBT

The Ethical Framework is made up of rules and regulations within which Counsellors and Psychotherapists strive to achieve in order to attain a high professional standard. It protects client and counsellor and compounds values, principles and personal moral qualities for counsellors to work alongside in order to achieve the highest standard of counselling for clients. These include safety, record keeping, confidentiality and issues such as prejudice, transference.

The American Counseling Association and the American Mental Health Counselors Association Codes of Ethics both provide guidance and direction in making ethical decisions for their members (ACA, 2005) (AMHCA, 2010). Both the ACA and the AMHCA Codes of Ethics cover a wide range of moral and ethical situations that could present themselves to mental health professionals. Both of these codes of ethics have significant impacts on the counseling profession. The tools provided by these codes of ethics ensure that mental health professionals are able to conform to the regulations set forth. They address common concerns from varying points of view. Understanding these codes of ethics is essential to all mental

My role as the clinician is quite important. The primary task is to engage the client in identifying cognitive errors, refuting them, and replacing them with more adaptive thoughts. A sound therapeutic relationship is necessary for effective therapy, but not the focus of the therapy. Many forms of other counseling believe that the main reason people get better in therapy is because of the positive relationship between the therapist and client. Cognitive-behavioral therapists believe it is important to have a good, trusting relationship, but I know that is not nearly enough. We believe that the clients change because they learn how to think differently and they act on that learning. Therefore, CBT tries and focuses on teaching rational self-counseling skills. CBT is the teamwork that exists between the therapist and the client. This form of therapy is used to seek ways of learning what their clients want out of life and then helping their clients achieve those goals. The therapist's role is to listen, teach, and encourage, while the client's roles is to express concerns, learn, and implement that learning (Pucci1).

The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions provides the foundations and guidelines for ethical understanding and good practice in counselling work. This enables a counsellor to practice safely in private practice or within an agency. Different agencies may work with other frameworks, for instance the National Counselling Society (NCS), who support counselling and related therapies, and are closely linked with the NHS. (Nationalcounsellingsociety.org). The BACP framework can’t inform a counsellor of specific rights or wrongs, but outlines the values, principles and moral qualities that a counsellor should adhere to, which helps with guidance and ethical decision making and safeguarding client and counsellor. (BACP, 2015)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in contrast to many other therapeutic frameworks has both an explicit rationale and an empirically demonstrable success rate. In addition to the wealth of published case histories there are a plethora of controlled studies attesting to the efficacy of CBT interventions with an equally diverse range of psychological and behavioral conditions. (Emmelkamp et al 1992).

To have good ethical practice within counselling it is important that there are boundaries and contracts in place that are agreed to and understood by both the counsellor and the client.

1. Describe and discuss ethical frameworks within which counselling and therapeutic practitioners work. Include justification for observing codes of conduct and how professionalism is maintained.

I intend to show an understanding of the ethical framework for good practice in counselling, relating it to practice and also my own beliefs and opinions, how this influences the counselling relationship, I will also show the need for protection of self and client.

Geldard, G & Geldard, K (2012) 7th Ed. Basic Personal Counselling: A Training manual for counsellors. N.S.W Australia. Pearson.

Through regular consultation, the Association continues to offer advice, as appropriate, to the Governments throughout the UK on all counselling and psychotherapy matters. BACP is consulted by government bodies, professional bodies, funding organisations, teaching institutions and many others on important issues concerning counselling and psychotherapy. The association is strongly committed to high practice standards and the protection of the public. This work is of the utmost importance in view of the approaching statutory regulation of counselling and psychotherapy.

They both have a “positive view of human nature and view the individual as not necessarily being a product of their past experiences, but acknowledge that they are able to determine their own futures” (Holder, 2013). They both attempt to improve their client’s wellbeing by implementing a two-way therapeutic relationship where both client and therapist collaborate to enable the clients coping mechanisms (Holder, 2013). CBT and PCT both instil the three core conditions of empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence but in CBT it is used mainly in the establishing of the working alliance (Holder, 2013). In both methods, the relationship between client and therapist is congruent and they both use the skills of reflection, paraphrasing and

Unlike Person-Centred therapy Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a scientific model founded in the 1960’s by Aaron Beck. It joins the theories of both Cognitive therapy and behavioural. He noticed that many of his counselling clients had an “Internal dialogue” (Beck, 1979) that was often negative and self-defeating and influenced behaviour. He realised that by working on these internal dialogues and making them positive it could effectively lead to positive changes in the behaviour of the clients. CBT focuses on the images, self-belief and attitudes held by the client and how these things can affect the client’s

At times people going through difficulties that needs counselling therapy might sometimes make a negative conclusion about themselves being the source of their problems. Though, getting the clear approach from the counsellor may possibly reduce the worries and stress. For the duration of the 15 minutes DVD recording session I followed the code of ethics and conduct of BPS and counsellors code of ethics by introducing myself, what my role will be, I was able to explain the code of Bps and the ethics code of counsellors by clarifying the concerns surrounding confidentiality and the time arrangement of the session. I also clarified the limitations of the counselling session that she is very free to stop the session at any time, and I also checked her understanding of the contract that is her choice to carry on with the session.

CBT was first described by Professor Aaron Beck in the early 1950’s (Wilding & Milne, 2008). In contrast with many of the psychological therapy models of the time, CBT was based on the belief that maladaptive thoughts and behaviours arise not from what has happened in our lives, but from how we think about what has happened to us (Taylor, 2006; Newman, 2013). A variety of approaches are considered to fall within the domain of CBT – these include Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (Dryden, 2009), Beck’s CBT approach, and Meichenbaum’s Cognitive Behaviour Modification (Meichenbaum, 1977) These approaches share 3