Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment of Psychological Disorders - Assignment Example

Article Social Anxiety Disorder is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. It is the fear of being judged and evaluated by other people. People who have Social Anxiety Disorder, also known as social phobia, tend to be shy, reserved, nervous, or unfriendly. People who suffer from this condition feel the same urge to socialize and make friends as anybody else would, but are psychologically ill equipped to carry out the same. The study conducted by the authors of this article, attempts to find if psychosocial treatments are effective with children with internalizing and externalizing factors. The study was conducted by analyzing existing literature on pharmacological and cognitive behavior treatments for Social Anxiety Disorder. The research drew relevant information from such scholarly publications as PsychInfo, PubMed, and Medline. First, the study focused on Social Anxiety symptoms which measured children’s social fears and doubts. Second, they wanted to measure general anxiousness of the subjects by using Child Manifest Anxiety Scale, State Trait Anxiety inventory as well as Children Trait Scale. Third, they wanted to measure children’s impairment due to social anxiety. Fourth, they wanted to measure social competence, which meant measuring social skills and engagement. Empirical information for this disorder suggests that Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has a very high success rate. Children who attend CBT sessions as well as adults who take Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) medications reported a significant change in anxiety symptoms. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has proven to be highly successful with children, just as SSRIs have worked well for adult patients. This study infers that CBT or SSRI treatments give comparable results when used on the respective groups. Hence the findings of this research article are consistent with counseling theory and practice, although it includes discussions on the efficacy of pharmacological approaches to treating Social Anxiety Disorder. This study has its limitations too, one such being the lack of follow up data 12 months after initial treatment. Article 2 The idea that client preferences regarding particular characteristics of their counselors and CBT approaches may critically influence such factors as whether the client seeks help, the duration of counseling, subsequent client evaluation of counseling, and certain other aspects of the client-counselor interaction process that has long held currency in counseling theory and research. This topic has been of interest to counseling researchers, and it has generated a number of research studies examining the idea that client satisfaction with therapy is a subjective and personal evaluation. The methods used in each study required every participant to have at least one musculoskeletal need and cannot be applied for any psychological condition. Participants had to complete a 10-week pain management therapy program with a cognitive behavior orientation. The sessions where conducted by masters level clinical psychologists and doctoral students. Each session only lasted an hour and its results evaluated once every eight sessions. The focus areas of this research project included measurements of clients’ depth, smoothness, and positive-vibes in the client-counselor interactive process. The results showed that client satisfaction depended upon personality domains of CBT treatment. The results also imply that the treatment requires participants to comply with therapy. The more the client complied with the treatment the more effective the outcomes. The research also showed a significant correlation between compliance and other dynamics of the treatment such as smoothness. Article 3 Cognitive behavioral therapy helps improve people’s mood-states and behavior by changing their way of thinking. It also involves changing the way patients interpret events and talk to themselves. This form of psychotherapy helps guide people into thinking more realistically and teaches them coping strategies to deal with their depression. Cognitive therapy is in most cases a short-term treatment that can have long-term results. This article will discuss CBT and pharmacology treatments to see if CBT treatments are more effective than medication when it comes to preventing relapse. In this study patients underwent an MRI scan during an acute phase of CBT and health volunteers had the same scan. In the method employed, clients received 16 sessions of CBT, each lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. In this study, faces of sadness: low, medium, and high were used as baselines. Furthermore, studies have shown that the results of cognitive therapy are long lasting, with relapse rates much lower when compared to other modes of treatment, including psychiatric drugs. But, medication is sometimes used, at least briefly, to relieve intense emotional disturbances and improve receptivity to therapy. The findings show that CBT has greater effect on an individual than does medication. Using CBT over a period of time has a positive effect on brain activity as opposed to medication. Results show that clients with least amount of brain activity had the greatest success rate and that clients with the greatest clinical improvement had the lowest linear load response. Article 4 The success of Cognitive Behavior Therapy is due to the fact that people are trying to attain their own expectations and follow their personal views of right and wrong, consciously making choices and developing them accordingly. Distress and depression therefore are the results of ones failure to live up to ones own expectations. In order to help their clients then, Cognitive therapists must "focus on the beliefs and attitudes" of the client. In order to decrease or eliminate negative thoughts, therapists employ several methods including rational-emotive therapy, which pinpoints negative attitudes or beliefs and encourages the client to "correct" these attitudes. Another technique would be Cognitive Restructuring, wherein clients are shown how their interpretations of events can lead to maladaptive responses. This helps the clients to see the consequences of their beliefs and encourages them to change their expectations and attitudes so that a more preferable reaction is obtained. In this study analyzing smoking cessation, the researchers used a variety of Open-label treatments which entail 8 weeks of Cognitive and Behavioral Cessation and Relapse Prevention Skills Training (CBCRPST) as well as Nicotine Patch Therapy combined with 9 weeks of Bupropion SR therapy. This was followed up by an extended treatment, where half the participants received an additional 12 weeks of CBT that combined clinic-based skills training sessions. By having these two different treatments the researchers are attempting to show an increase in asceticism rates through an increase in the amount of counseling sessions. In this study telephone counseling was compared to cognitive behavior therapy and it was found that telephone therapy was more effective over a longer period of time than CBT or brief counseling. Over a twenty week follow up the telephone counselor had a better success percentage rate than the CBT counselor. This could be due to the fact that telephone counselors are available during most crisis situations than office-based counselors. When clients feel the urge to smoke they can call the hotline and have a counselor talk them through their cravings as opposed to a CBT counselor, who can only meet with him/her at a scheduled time. One limitation of this study is that it was not conducted for a period lengthy enough to make its findings conclusive. The authors do acknowledge this inadequacy by stating that they should run the study for a further 32 weeks, in addition to the initial twenty, to validate results. Article 5 Researchers have of late identified a new form of psychological affliction called Internet Addiction. Studies in this area reveal that there may be an actual form of addiction involved with over-use of the Internet. Identifying which category of addiction the Internet falls under is still a matter of debate. There are no real answers yet because research in this area is at the beginning stages. Whilst lost in this so called ‘Cyber Community’ for long periods of time, people are neglecting other important activities like time with family, socializing, work and health concerns. This study shows that the problem with internet addiction is that it hinders an individual’s behavior because of addiction to things like internet pornography (for men) and cyber sex (for women). With CBT the counselors are attempting to treat the individual’s behavior in front of and away from the computer. CBT counselors are attempting to establish with their clients a base line of social and occupational functioning. The procedure that the counselors employed included an initial appointment for gathering background information and severity of computer use. Later, the counseling also focused on social problems and behavioral issues. The use of the internet was evaluated after every 3rd, 8th and 12th sessions on a 6 month follow-up. Clients reported that CBT counseling motivated them to quit their addiction. Some of the tactics that the counselors applied included online time management and decreasing the time spend in social isolation. The study was effective because clients were able to maintain system management after a 6 month period. This study was also a self reported study, meaning that they relied on the clients to report their data to the counselors. So, if clients give back false information, then the results may be skewed. This is one drawback of this study. Article 6 Post-traumatic Stress Disorder or (PTSD) is caused by exposure to violent events such as rape, domestic violence, child abuse, war, accidents, natural disasters and political torture. The symptoms of PTSD may simply be a normal reaction to witnessing a traumatic experience. Only if the symptoms persist longer than three months it is technically classified as PTSD. People suffering from PTSD may have episodes where the past traumatic event “intrudes” their present everyday life. This can occur in sudden vivid memories that are accompanied by painful emotions, wherein the trauma is said to be “re-experienced”. In the process used for conducting this study, a group of 24 patients were first screened by a treatment team in which the client had a major diagnosis on Axis 1. The members of this group typically have symptoms of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and co-morbid PTSD. The results of these patients were then compared with other patients throughout the study. In the treatment group trauma patients received CBT on a weekly basis while the patients in the comparison group did not receive any treatment. The CBT group showed a statistically significant reduction in somatic symptoms, anxiety, tension, depression, suspiciousness, hostility and excitement. Read More