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Cognitive Behavioral Psychology In Inside Out

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Cognitive behavioral psychology pertains to how someone interprets feelings and how he or she reacts to this interpretation. Cognition indicates how one thinks and this interacts with emotion and behavior. In other words, an activating event takes place and provokes an assumption which leads to resulting consequences that are normally negative. In the movie Inside Out, Riley leads a happy life in Minnesota which is turned upside-down when her family moves to San Francisco. The stress of the move causes a major disruption in Riley’s life and emotions. Using cognitive behavioral psychology, Riley’s thoughts can be analyzed through the ABC technique; this technique begins with A (activating event), then B (belief), which results in C (consequence). Under Riley’s circumstances, the stress she experiences causes her beliefs to be mostly negative, which therefore leads to poor consequences. In San Francisco, Riley’s dad was very busy with work and the family’s new home and …show more content…

As she was skating down the ice with the puck, she made a mistake and tumbled. She thought that she was worthless and did not see the point in trying. She then quits the hockey team, something so important to her, just because of one mistake. This is unhealthy because one needs to fail in order to succeed; she must work through the errors to come out stronger. In conclusion, Riley’s reactions to her experiences led her to be generally downtrodden with no attempt to raise her attitude. Instead of taking positive outlooks on the events in her life, Riley had the most pessimistic thought process on each incident. This pertains to cognitive psychology because of the way Riley interpreted situations in different ways based on her current emotions in the movie. Although this is all about a character in a movie, this ABC technique is something one could use when assessing a situation to prevent an unnecessary

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