Fritz Perls: Helping Professionals In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, is a theoretical approach to counseling that involves the restructuring of a persons’ negative thoughts into something more positive. An example in the book, Helping Professionals, describes a husband arriving home late from work and how the wife can change her mindset to be more positive as to why he was late. If she thinks that he is stuck in traffic, she might be mad at the situation but not at home, if she thinks that he is going out with friends because he is falling out of love with her, she will be mad and hurt and that can cause great turmoil in their lives. By changing the way someone thinks about situations, it can change their emotion and in turn their behavior. There are many techniques that work

The idea was that a person would take the role of whomever they are in conflict with and respond as that person would and then switch roles. However, I would go about this a different way and have the client read their thought records to their younger self who is “sitting” in the chair. It is very hard to say the harsh things someone says about himself or herself when they are talking to their young self. By having the client realize that the words they say to themselves now are harsh and unnecessary they can change the way they look at things, and improve their mental health. It promotes positivity and induces a wake up call that could be just what the client needed in order to change their thoughts about

According to Alice Boyes, an exposure hierarchy understanding triggers (could refer back to the thought records) and then listing ways to go about exposing yourself to those triggers. For example, a person with social anxiety could put number one as giving a speech in front of peers, and then the last one could be just asking someone for directions. Number one being their worst fear and then working their way up the list until they feel confident enough to tackle it. To modify this, Boyes suggests giving each level a point system so that if the client asked directions but they were still very anxious about it they could have that experience a 2/10 and once they get to 10/10 confidence level they can move on to a higher stressor. This helps simplify the process of recovery and lays out a general plan of action. Combining these techniques to help accomplish cognitive-behavioral therapy, I believe that the client can achieve their desired result. By changing the way they think about themselves, and situations they can alter the way they react and emote. This is very beneficial for living the holistic life that they want. Combining therapeutic approaches can be a sure way to cover all the bases and then picking techniques that are unique to each client can help personalize the therapeutic experience and enhance the