Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy Paper

Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy Introduction
Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy (CBFT) attends to both external interactions amongst family members and their internal experiences. This treatment modality also attends to the families’ emotional reaction to one another (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015). CBFT holds that healthy families are those that are able to be more flexible to lives stressors, and maintain appropriate consequences for negative behaviors (Dattilio, 2010). Families that are dysfunctional on the other hand, will hold dysfunctional family schemas and reinforce negative behaviors by the use of intermitted reinforcement (Nichols, 2013). CBFT is guided by the principle that the therapist and family members in treatment should have a collaborative

relationship in order for treatment to be effective (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015).
Patterson (2014) reduces CBFT to three basic elements, which are communication, problem solving, and behavior exchange. Communication is the ability of the family to listen attentively to one another, be receptive to what is being said, and respond adequately to the other person’s requests/ statements. Problem solving involves the family’s ability to respectfully, collaboratively, and systematically generate solutions to present stressors. Behavior exchange is how the family is able to fairly allocate its resources in the current task.
Wetchler & Hecker (2015) states that there are two cognitive factors in CBFT, automatic thoughts and schemas.

Automatic thoughts are a stream of conscious thoughts that seem plausible at the time, although they may be distorted. These negative thoughts are shaped by cognitive distortions, there are eight of these distortions. Overgeneralization, is when an isolated incident is allowed to serve as the representative for all possible situations. Personalization, assuming that independent and or isolated events involve you when in fact they do not. Mind reading, knowing what others are thinking or feeling without actual verbal communication. Dichotomous thinking, black and white thoughts, things are either this way or that but no grey areas. Selective abstraction, negative information is highlighted as truth while all other information is ignored. Magnification and minimization, is when a situation can be viewed as being more important or less important than it really is. Attributions, are inferences that individuals make about the reasoning behind an event or situation that occurs, that may or may not be distorted. Expectancies are predictions that individuals make about the likelihood that something will

occur.
Schemas are long standing beliefs that an individual has about the way the world around them functions. They dictate how the individual will think or feel about certain situations and how they will react to what goes on around them (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015). However, Dattilio (2010) contends that schemas can also be family held. Family schemas come about after years of interactions with one another. They can be passed down from prior generations, rules on how the family views others, and the world around them. These schemas are often unchallenged, but merely accepted as fact. They are therefore so ingrained into the family structure that dysfunctional interactions come about as a result.
Ultimately, the goal of CBFT is to achieve behavioral and cognitive changes within the individuals in the family. CBFT requires that families’ increase and reward positive interactions, and decrease/ extinguish negative family interactions. Another goal of CBFT is to teach families effective communication and problem solving skills. Treatment in CBFT consists of assessments, and teaching the family to identify automatic thoughts and to challenge them (Nichols, 2013).