Copy of COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY

Restoration Family is a recovery and healing educational podcast for individuals and families that have a loved one that struggles with mental health and/or substance use disorders combined. Restoration family teaches Biblical principles, recovery steps, counseling and marriage and family interventions. I am a Licensed Mental Health therapist, a Psy. D. in Counseling, a Master level addiction professional and a trained pastor and chaplain.

Transcript

0:01

Hi, my name's Dr. David Johnson. I'm a licensed mental health counselor. I'm a marriage and family clinical supervisor, and I'm also licensed and certified in all the fields of addiction, and I wanted to welcome you to my video. Cognitive behavioral skills, finding a better life balance. So when you're looking at some of the concepts and theory behind cognitive behavioral skills, you see that people pretty much. Think, believe, feel, and act according to their core belief systems. And even one of the therapists, Aaron Beck, who was one of the founders of cognitive therapy, described our thoughts as running on automatic. Or automatic thoughts, so to speak. So that would be one of the terms you'd be looking at. And also thinking about it's almost like we have a default setting on a lot of our thinking, and that leads to our emotions and our behavior. So when you study your thinking, you can understand better that you're pretty much in charge. Of a lot of the way you perceive reality and how you respond to it, or some people will react to certain situations. So we want to train you to develop these skills so that you do a lot better job for that, for yourself and also for other people. Some of the things we're gonna look at theoretically is your ingrained belief systems. Maybe things you learned early in life. Growing up in your family system, your automatic thoughts, and then also sometime we want to determine if we're thinking in a way that's somewhat irrational or reactive, and then we wanna start to correct those patterns and things get a lot better. So as we move in through these studies, you're gonna develop probably six or seven different skills that you can apply. In real life situations. Cognitive behavioral skills were used for depression, anxiety, stress, but after research has been looking at this for quite some time, it's a very, very effective tool for all different types of emotional imbalances, stress reduction thinking, and just producing more joy and overcoming thoughts. Are negative or undermining ourselves. So I'm excited that you're here and this is a good class. You're gonna like it and you're gonna wanna learn a lot of good things that you can apply right to your life. So welcome to the class, cognitive Behavioral Skills, finding a Better Life Balance. Now, one of the things you want to ask yourself is why would I want to take this class? Well, one of the things that we've learned is people are pretty much running on automatic pilot most often because they have ingrained and internalized belief systems that they've learned early in life, and sometimes they're referred to as automatic thoughts or your self talk. Or it could be a core belief system, and they can be very beneficial at times, but sometimes they're not. So with cognitive behavioral skills, you start to really look at your thinking and see how well that's working for you. And then you want to go ahead and see if you need to dispute some of the thinking. Once you discover what your thought patterns are, and then you may want to change them to a more healthy. Balanced and emotionally healing type of thinking process, then that will affect also your feelings and then your behavior. Originally, it was used a lot for depression and anxiety, but once we did the research, we found out a lot of this is very, very beneficial for stress reduction, conflict resolution, anger management, marriage and family. Therapy and education, and also different ways to improve your own thinking, feelings and behavior, and also your social interaction with other people. Now, Albert Ellis has been described as the grandfather founder of cognitive behavioral therapy. So a lot of the techniques, the interventions and skills that you're going to learn. Will be many of the ones that he taught and discovered through his research and applications. There are some key theories of cognitive behavioral models. Pretty much one of the main ones is that people tend to develop belief systems and self-talk, and then they act according to these ingrained belief systems, and they're often learned early in life They're taught maybe as a defense mechanism or they could have been internalized in a difficult situation. So we can go back and look at our thinking and our situations and how we react and perceive the world and correct. Any of these belief systems that are leading to faulty emotions or even faulty behavior that could be considered, pathological on some level or irrational. So a big part of this process is to go back and look at your belief systems and how you feel and act and see if you can improve them or make them more healthy. So this is a chart of the A, B, C of Albert Ellis Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. So you look at a, and that's an actual event that happens, or a scenario B is our belief about the event, how we perceive it, how we look at it. C is a consequence of how we're looking at that event or how we're perceiving the event. So that could be maybe a little negative. But then d, if we need to, we can dispute how we're looking at the event and we can find evidence and logic and reason to change that belief. Now, once that belief changes because we've disputed it or discovered a better way of looking at it, then we can develop the E, which would be a new effect. Like a new emotional state, and then the emotional state would lead to F, a new feeling. Now Albert Ella stated that we develop many of our irrational beliefs early in childhood and these beliefs. Can become ingrained in pretty much an automatic thought or our self-talk, how we perceive ourselves in the world and other people. And some of these can lead to emotional disturbances. So these are rational belief systems can oftentimes look like a must have. I just absolutely must have this or I can't stand it if this happens or you've all heard about. The shoulda, woulda, coulda. Then there's also thinking that he describes as awfulizing, or sometimes we can do what is called, self downing ourselves, or self downing other people. Now, another thing that cognitive therapy says is a lot of us tend to blame other people for a lot of things. We also tend to blame ourselves a lot, and that really doesn't help it a lot because human beings make mistakes. We make mistakes. There's problems and difficulties in life. So blaming techniques are not very beneficial for anybody. Ellis also stated that our emotions come mostly from our perceptions, beliefs, interpretations, and reactions to life events. And these are often learned very early in life in your family system, so you don't always get to question them or think them through. You're pretty much running on an automatic pilot. Now cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches that we can learn how to look at our thinking better and look at our belief systems, our self-talk. And the internal dialogue that we have going on, and if it's faulty or out of balance or unrealistic or irrational, we can learn to discover that and then we can learn to correct that thinking and then place different types of belief systems, ideas. logic, reason, the truth, things like that. And just develop a much better belief system process if it's not working properly for us. And the key to this is that a lot of our beliefs and our self-talk goes on out of our awareness so we can get really good at discovering what we're thinking and then correct it. Ella stated that we can learn to use logic, reason, evidence, and facts to change our beliefs that may be irrational. And he talks about irrational beliefs as being, kind of out of balance a little bit. Like I, I must have the, this, I absolutely have to do this. And then you've all heard about the shoulda, woulda, couldas. And then there's also thinking that he describes as awfulizing and then also yourself, depreciating thinking patterns that often people get caught up in. So once again, these are the belief systems. We're gonna look at some common irrational belief systems that people have, and you've seen them and I've seen them. Ellis talks about instead of having a must have, and you've probably done this, I've done this, I must have this new job. I must have this new girlfriend. I must have this car. I must live in this new area. I must have this much money, or I must lose 20 pounds before this wedding. There's a lot of things that we can really pressure ourselves with this. What's called absolutist thinking, that is referred to as a must have, and he talks about changing that into a preference Instead. I would prefer to lose that weight before the wedding and look a lot healthier, but if I don't, it's not gonna be something that really is just horrible or terrible. People also can learn to change the shoulds. Woods Coulds, we tend to beat ourselves up with them a lot, and we even use that language with other people. So you can check your language, how you talk to other people, and also how people talk to you to see if you're using some of these, irrational statements or verbalizations commands, awfulizing things. Also self doubting yourself or other people. Another common belief system we see is that I must have love and approval from all these people in my life. And that would be nice'cause we want to have good, healthy, loving relations with people built on trust and safety. But you know, sometime that doesn't happen. Even people in your own family system or some of your close friends, sometime you have some big difficulties and some arguments with them. So that can be out of balance. You may not have love and approval from people that are important to you. That might not happen all the time. I must be highly competent in all important areas of my life. This is another common belief system that can be absolutist or also irrational. You're not gonna be confident in all different areas. This is a picture of a perfectionist kind of image and a lot of people can develop this type of behavior or choices and per fictionist, people can be very hard on themselves and also they're difficult to be around with other people. They tend to not be any fun because you're always having to do more and more and more. you don't want to ever make mistakes and you always want to be right. And that's not good because people aren't always right and they're not always gonna do things perfectly. Another belief system, if I don't get what I want, I just can't stand it. And you'll see some people act like this in recovery systems. They'll talk about that as the king baby syndrome. But you also, you can see the expression with people, you know, sometime we're not gonna get what we want, and a lot of times it's really good that we didn't get what we want, because sometime we want the wrong things. Now, William Glasser, he's the founder of Reality Therapy, and, he had a lot of very, interesting insights into human nature. He said that there were two things that you can really change, and one is you can change what you're doing. And you can also change what you want. Now, a lot of people will say, I want this, and they don't realize that they can change that. This is a homework assignment for you so you can look at your life and what you're going through right now and look and see if you have a bunch of must haves or some must haves or an absolutist thing, or this will be terrible if this doesn't happen, or I've just got to have this now and look at that and see if you can change. That belief system or understanding into a preference, I would really prefer to have that job. I would prefer to lose that 20 pounds. I would prefer to go to that wedding and looking better, and I would prefer to have that girlfriend or boyfriend, but look at those situations and see if there's some that you can change from a must have to a preference. These are some common important cognitive interventions that we would learn in this class, and also I want you to learn and see about applying them to different parts of your life and the events that you go through. One, this is called a reframe. A reframe just means we start to look at something. Differently, Sometime I'll use the job analogy again. If I'm having trouble with a supervisor on my job and, and this happens quite a bit or some other people at a job and they start kind of getting on my case and things are difficult, then that could cause you a lot of stress. You could have, oh no, this is just awful. If I lose my job, I won't have enough money. I won't be able to pay my bills. I could end up. getting evicted from my apartment, but as we look back on our life, a lot of us had to change jobs a number of times, and it was a really good thing because we weren't in the right place at the right time with the right people. So sometime looking at a reframe will really help you see some new opportunities that are realistic and they're very beneficial at times. This is the Chinese picture for a crisis, and I've seen this a lot in counseling and therapy and family systems, is this crisis shows up in these people's life or some person's life, and then they get all stressed out and hurt and depressed and angry and anxiety and panic issues and all that. But the crisis. According to the Chinese has two parts of this character. One is danger and the other half is opportunity. So a lot of times when you see a crisis show up, if you think about it this way, a crisis is difficult and it can be dangerous, but it also brings about tremendous opportunities because in a crisis, things cannot continue like they are. And a lot of times that forces us to move in a different direction. That can be very beneficial. This is another intervention you can call or use called ACT as If, and right here, you just get up in the morning and say you were isolated or you didn't go to a lot of social settings and stuff, but you got up one day and you said, you know what I, I really like people and you're gonna start acting that way. Another thing is, I don't know if you've ever been around people that. Are very unhappy a lot. Sometime you can choose to be happy and if you're happy and you like people, a lot of times other people like you more and they feel better. So you can create or recreate a lot of your social interactions just by changing the way you're acting. You don't always have to think or believe in a certain way sometime you just have to act. In recovery, they have this statement. It says, bring your feet to a meeting and your head will follow. This is one of my techniques. I went into a family where I started working. I. With a family that was having a lot of problems. I think there was some domestic violence here and some alcohol issues and money problems and communication. But when I went in, there was this, 4-year-old boy and he was screaming at his mother and actually cursing at her. So when I went into the family, I started talking to'em. I said, you know, there's some things you need to stop doing right now, or things are not gonna get better. You need to stop yelling at each other particularly in front of the children. You need to stop cursing at each other. You might really want to start listening better to one another. And then there are some other things you might want to do. This is the go part. I might want to catch people doing something right? Speak words of encouragement. And I would even ask the family members, you know, what's something that your wife does that you're really. Love about her. And I would ask the wife, what's something your husband does that you really respect about him, and what's a gift or ability that your child has? So I wanted people to start catching people doing things right, including themselves, and then speak it out in words. that's one of the go patterns of, love languages. And one of them is, words of affirmation. Another one is called time spend Time with people. that really need that type of language. Another one could be acts of service. I come home from a hard days of work and my wife makes a nice dinner for me, or I wash her car and help her with a bunch of other things around the house to, because she's working hard here. Another thing you can do is. bring gifts to someone and sometimes, particularly children or other people, they like gifts because when you pick out a good gift for someone, they realize that you've been thinking about them and they perceive that as love. So there's all these different love languages that you can, live out in your family system and demonstrate them to other people, and they work very well. So find out what your language is. They're called the love languages. You can do a simple test, it's even online, and determine what your main language is or the people in your family, what their main language is. Then you go about going, purposely or intentionally to demonstrate this love language There's usually two main languages. This is, your list or your homework. make your stop go. the compromise list, which I'll discuss here, the stops things, is these are things you really need to stop doing. it could, maybe you're drinking too much or spending too much money, worrying too much. If you can't do this on your own, there's a lot of help for people out there. There's groups, there's online help. Skillshare has a lot of good social, trainings and, and counseling and life coaching. So there's a lot of things you can do if you're struggling. You don't just have to stay stuck there. And then the go list would certainly be things you need to start doing., and then go to the go list, which would be, I might need to exercise more, go back to school, start reading some good material, catch myself doing things right, encourage myself and other people speak words of affirmation. Spend time with my children. Do gifts. And acts of service. And also there's the physical touch. Well, I might wanna hug my kids and my family members more often. The compromise list is usually something you have to work out together. A lot of people have to compromise in families when it comes to money management, time management. What you do on holidays, vacations. Childcare and also how you're gonna raise your children and discipline them. And also the area of in-laws is a big thing where families have to come together and work things out. So these are some of the skills and interventions that you can learn to challenge your negative or irrational automatic thoughts. One is we'll go through the ABCs again, an actual event. Then it's your belief about the event, if that's, absolutist or it's creating a lot of stress. I. Or, uh, you say you're overreacting to something or way underreacting to something, there's a consequence about that belief. So you might wanna look at that belief. And if it's pathological, you can dispute that or find evidence to change that belief. Look at it a different way, and then you have that new effect. And the new effect can lead to a new feeling. The evidence part is this is where you actually become like a lawyer. So you wanna look at facts and evidence and reality and the truth and really measure this sometime. Make a list of how true is this or, can I look at it in a different way, but. When you're, looking at making good decisions, you actually have kind of like a courthouse in your mind going on. So you want to be a good lawyer to deal with reality and truth and encourage yourself, but make good decisions that are wise and based in truth and reality. Also, you don't have to believe something if it's not true. A lot of people, somebody says. Something that somebody said that somebody said, and that happens all the time you find out that didn't really happen. And so I question things more than I used to. And also I wanna look at things and believe'em. If they're factual and true, and if they're healthy, alternative explanation. This is a good example of an intervention. Say you walk into. Your job today and you say Good morning to one of your associates or friends, and they just walk by you and ignore you. Now, it could be that they're walking by you and ignoring you. That's a possibility, but another possibility would be what? Think about it. Maybe they just heard some difficult news. Maybe the boss was on their case. Something might have happened. They might not be feeling well. They might not have heard you. You know, a lot of people walk around with, uh, ear devices. Sometimes they're, not listening or they're not in the moment, so there's a lot of alternative explanations that you might want to grab a hold of before you just react to this person was rude to me because a lot of times the alternative explanations are good and they're actually what happened. So I want to teach you how to do that and also. Look at that with other people, exceptions to the rule. This would be a situation where oftentimes you'll see people say, oh no, I can't do that. you might say, give me a good book. I'll show you this, to someone that needs it because they really need to read and study about, making good choices with relationships or how to manage money better or increasing their health and wellbeing or their mental health. So sometime I've gone up to people and said, you know, I have a really good book that will help you tremendously. And they said, well, I, I really don't like to read. Or I really don't like to do that. One of the exceptions to the rule would be when they bought that car, they read everything about it. When they bought that house, they did a massive amount of research online and books and checked realtor companies and listings. And so a lot of times people will say something also, maybe if they want to be outgoing, they say, well, I really don't like crowds and stuff and, I don't like, Going outdoors too much around the water and say, well, what about that time you went scuba diving or snorkeling? You had a great time. So sometime there's exceptions to the rule that you can look at to overcome a state of avoidance. Avoidance is usually where you're not gonna go someplace for whatever reason. Sometimes fear, and you can get by that A lot of times when you take risk. It turns out to be one of the most exciting things you've ever done. When you question a lot of people that are older at the end of their life and say, what's one thing you learned about this or would've liked to have done? Many people have said, I wish I had taken more risk in life. A scaling question is a solution. Say I have a problem. even in family systems, I would ask, what number would you give your husband or boyfriend about how much he demonstrates love to you? Now if the woman said, or the person said, well, a three, then I would ask her, well, what would it take to get to a four? And that way. You can move toward a solution in small steps. The person's not gonna go from a three to a 10 immediately, but they might be able to go from a three to a four or a five. The other thing that happens with scaling questions, when you ask somebody a solution in steps, there have to give you some form of solution or answer or tell you what they're looking for. They just say, well, he can't do that. But if he said, I'd like him to talk to me better, I'd like him to not get angry. I'd like him to listen. That's something that's attainable and, and they can do so. Scaling questions are very good at solving problems and working towards solutions in small attainable steps. So look at this picture here, and it really depends on how you look at it. We already talked about reframes, but you can see that face on that picture, but there's also a word there too. So look at that. And sometime we have to look at situations differently or look for opportunities in the midst of a situation because. A lot of times we look at something and then we react and we set a mindset on it and that might not lead us to a very good, process or a good way to go Sometime. There's a lot better ways to look at stuff and there's a lot better ways to go about things. Your final project, here we are at the end. So your final project is to apply one or more of these cognitive behavioral skills to a difficult situation. And this can be real or imagined. You don't have to disclose some big problem that you're going through in your life right now or some, issue that you really don't want to discuss about. So it could be real or imagined. And then you want to apply one of these skills. That you've learned or more than one of the skills. this is your process. You detect and define an unproductive or irrational belief system that is real or imagined. This could include this must have thing or this absolutist thinking or the should have woulda couldas. And then also we have the awfulizing and self downing belief systems. So you have to detect it and define it. You're not gonna be able to change something you're not aware of. So I want you to start looking at your belief systems, and if there's something that's somewhat pathological, I want you to look at it and detect it and determine what it is and discover what that belief system is. Then you want to debate or dispute the belief system that is unproductive or illogical, or you could call it irrational'cause you're over exaggerating the extent of the problem. You can use logic. You can use questions, evidence, and skills that you've learned so far. So in this third step, you're going to replace an unproductive or irrational belief system. And it's usually something that is like a must have or a should have, would've coulda, could be an awfulizing idea. And you want to change that to a preference if you can, or more realistic, healthy belief system. So. Go ahead and start studying these techniques. you also have the reframes, the way you look at something differently, an alternative explanation. You look at a scenario or a situation and instead of reacting to something, in a default setting, look at it in another way that might be more healthy or more, realistic or even more, forgiving of yourself or someone else. Then you have the exceptions to the rule and any of the techniques that you learned in this class. So as far as the final thoughts, I'd like you to go over the definitions and terms and start thinking about'em. Looking at your thinking, your belief systems. try to determine if you have these must haves and these absolutist thinking patterns. The should have woulda couldas the awfulizing. And if you can change those into preferences, and also looking at, the other interventions and tools such as the alternative explanations, the exception to the rule. And just start using these techniques and interventions to improve the way you look at yourself in this world and also the way you look at other people. I think they can greatly enhance your relationships, your motivation, and also just bring you a better sense of peace and joy in life. So I wish you well and take care.