Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

ordan enters therapy with exaggerated and intrusive thoughts surrounding the events that are currently impacting her life. These thoughts are tied to changes within her relationships with friends, family and with her personal relationships with men. Because Jordan’s thoughts are negatively impacting her normal daily activities like work, being able to link her thoughts to her behavior and bring awareness to Jordan seems to be the most fitting goal for therapy. Jordan’s case will be viewed through the techniques, and principles of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy Cognitive (CBT) is a “form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors” (Duckworth and Freedman, 2012, p.1). Due to Jordan’s pattern of negative thinking, conducting therapy through the lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will work to “use cognitive interventions, such as Socratic dialogue, and reframing in efforts to change perception” (Seligman and Reichenberg, 2010, p. 346). CBT is a comprehensive approach filled with strategies that clients can immediately use upon completion of the session and is most often times provides tangible ways to measure their progress through therapy.

Presenting Issues:
Jordan’s presenting issues appears to stem from her perception on the changes that are happening in her life, specifically ones that pertain to her personal relationships. Jordan’s biggest complaint is about her relationship with her best friend Francis, one that she describes as never being “the same” due to Francis’s recent engagement. She complains about her not being as available and her guilt around not being happy for her during this time in her friend’s life. Jordan also struggles wit...

... middle of paper ...

...ith the changes she is experiencing.

Role of Therapist:
Therapists work collaboratively with clients by using techniques like “reverse-advocacy role-play in which the clinician espouses a problem and the client provides reasons why the clinician’s thinking’s maladaptive, illogical, unreasonable, or negative” (Seligman and Reichenberg, 2010, p. 350). Allowing Jordan to hear how she sound will be powerful, sometimes its hard to evaluate yourself in the moment, if she is able to see or hear how extreme her thinking is, she may be motivated to change. If a therapist is successful in helping the client apply problem-solving skills, they will increase the clients self-efficacy, help clients to visualize successful outcomes, and will result in the development of new skills that can be transferred to other areas of their lives” (Seligman and Reichenberg, 2010, p. 350).