Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy Essay

Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy

- Albert Ellis is the first individual to utilize an approach centered around cognition and its influence on behavior. His A-B-C model revolves around the idea that stimuli initiate beliefs that in turn engage emotional response; he stated that dysfunction occurred in the presence of irrational beliefs that illicit inappropriate negative response. Ellis' approach was reserved mostly for individuals and couples, but some of the main principles of his theory would be passed down into family therapy.

- B.F. Skinner is primarily responsible for the development of operant conditioning; a theory that stated that behavior which is reinforced continues to persist over time while behavior that is not reinforced will not persist over time.

- John Krumboltz and Gerald Patterson further developed Skinner's approach by emphasizing the role that parents had in developing appropriate behavior in children. Positive reinforcement became more favored, and rewards replaced punishments as the method of reinforcement.

- Frank Dattilio brought CBT into the forefront of family therapy. His approach emphasizes the influence that the personal and family schema has in creating distortions and automatic thinking, which leads to dysfunctional outcomes.

- Cognitive behavioral family therapy is grounded in various empirical concepts. From Ivan Pavlov's concept of classical conditioning to B.F. Skinner's approach of operant conditioning, CBT builds upon a wide variety of approaches.

- The concept that really shaped the trajectory of CBT is the social learning theory developed by Albert Bandura and Richard Walters in 1963. This theory serves as one of the key pillars in CBT with its emphasis on the influential role that though...

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...g the topic of homework. Some common issues with homework include a lack of time and a feeling that it is irrelevant or not applicable to the client. I think when using homework there needs to be balance between what the therapist thinks is appropriate and what the client feels is attainable and appropriate.

- Secondly, the concept of cognitive restructuring is something that really interests me from a therapy stand-point. Regardless of client there are undoubtedly set in behaviors and thinking that clients exhibit. The reactionary nature of those behaviors and thoughts usually mean that they are not always the most functional or appropriate, so this technique can be helpful with any form of negative reactionary behavior or thinking. It really gets the client to have more conscious thought into their behaviors and reactions and brings more self-awareness and insight.