Chapter 10 Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive Therapy is most closely associated with Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive Therapy focuses on the premise that emotions and behaviors are the product of our perceptions of situations. How you think and what you think are two big focuses for Cognitive Therapists. There are three levels of cognitive process according to this approach: pre-conscious, conscious, and meta-cognitive. The pre-conscious is the basis survival instincts which are out of awareness, the conscious is what we think, and meta-cognitive is thinking about the thought process. Cognitive Therapists focus on individuals schema's. Schemas are how individuals create meaning of information, and use the schema to drive actions.

One situation in school counseling that this applies to is testing. Cognitive Therapists have proven the impact of stereotype threat. As a school counselor, academics is one of the top three focuses. It will be important to educate teachers and administration about the effects of stereotype threat. If a female is reminded how much better males are at math right before taking a math exam, she will likely not perform as well. Also, it is important to remind educational professionals the importance of saying what you mean and meaning what you say. If a teacher calls a student a lazy dummy, the student may take on that schema and follow it.

Video: Cognitive Session
In this video session, the counselor talked with the client about the cognitive model. They discussed the process of how everything works. They discussed beliefs and automatic thoughts. The counselors presented a situation of a person walking down the street and they wave at a friend and she doesn't wave back, the person could have various different reactions. The client could either think, shes mad at me or maybe she didn't see me. The counselor points out  the possibility of different behaviors for the same situation based on feelings and thoughts. Thoughts affect actions, the counselor wanted to focus on the evidence, is that thought accurate. This is a very clear example of a cognitive therapy session.