Studying Cognitive Therapies: Psychotherapy Techniques

Cognitive therapy is the type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing negative ways of thinking and behaving. Oftentimes these negative ways of thinking are brought on by stress or other problems a person's life. Psychologists try to expose these ways of thinking and behaving, in order to help a person change them. If a person only thinks negative thoughts, then his or her well-being is hurt. There are three main types of cognitive therapies: rational emotive therapy, Beck's cognitive therapy, and stress inoculation therapy. All three ways use different methods to help change a person's way of thinking, but the goal remains the same: to help a person overcome their negative thoughts and have a better outlook on the world around them.

Rational emotive therapy helps a person discover their self-defeating beliefs and seeks to change them. The psychologist and the patient will talk and try to uncover just why the person holds these beliefs. After discovering the source of these beliefs, then the patient works on correcting the reasons that they have them. This can be a long process but in the end it is fairly effective.

Beck's cognitive therapy is similar to the rational emotive therapy in that it also helps examine dysfunctional thoughts and tries to correct them. This method tries to get a person to think more objectively and have a more positive outlook on life. Again this can take a fair amount of time to work, but in the end it is helpful for most people who have a problem with their self-image.

Stress inoculation therapy is essentially trying to coach oneself there are many situations in which a person finds himself or herself stressed. The goal of this type of therapy is to help eliminate the negative thoughts brought on by stress and replace them with a more positive outlook. It can be tricky at first to talk oneself out of being stressed, but it is very beneficial to a person's well-being, as often reduces the amount of negativity that a person thinks about.

All three of these methods are fairly effective and it just depends on the person receiving the psychotherapy as to which method is used and most effective. It can be difficult to find what is most effective, so the psychologist may try different methods depending on what he or she believes will work best. Overall, it helps a fair amount of people overcome the negativity in their life.