The Assignment: CBT in Family Setting

Respond to at least two of your colleagues by recommending CBT strategies to overcome the challenges your colleagues have identified. Support your recommendations with evidence-based literature and/or your own experiences with clients. In APA Format and proper citation, provide at least two references for each response post.

Response post #: 1

CBT in Family and Individual Setting

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in family therapy is targeted at identifying behavioral goals, learning theory techniques to achieve those goals, and social reinforcers to facilitate achievement.  Wheeler (2014), described Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a collaborative method between the therapist and the patient involving psychological analysis, reality checking, and problem solving.

This therapy is the most commonly studied psychotherapeutic model that has been proven to be effective in coping with multiple emotional and behavioral disorders, making it suitable for various patient environments and demographics, including adult, group and family environments.

CBT in Family Setting

In the assessment process of CBT for Family Therapy, the aims are to recognize person or group strengths and challenges, position individual and family activity, and define cognitive, emotional, and behavioral elements of family members interaction. Information is got from various sources and perspectives, making it easier  to define a pattern and see the family dynamics.

Members of the family affect one another, and their actions cause other members’ behaviors. During this counseling it is important to pay attention to the attitudes, emotions and cognitions of the individuals linked to the question, the group’s acts towards an individual, the collective reactions of the family members towards an individual and the characteristics of the family relationships.

CBT in Family Setting

Focuses on the perceptions of the patient during patient CBT and how the person reacts, thinks, or acts. Individual CBT places importance on primary and secondary thinking, processing and changes in behavior. The goal of therapy is to restructure the way a patient responds or reacts to a given stimulus or problem.

One difficulty therapists face is that family members may reject the therapeutic interventions and hinder the progress  family members.  Situations arise when family members don’t follow therapy recommendations.  Especially in the treatment of patient’s who have manipulative tendencies, some family members are enablers in the patient’s bad behavior.

It is important for everyone to follow therapist recommendations which may be, minimal phone calls to the patient in treatment, restraining from providing favors that may affect with the treatment process to the patient and providing feedback to the treatment team on maladaptive behavior of the patient to the team.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in an individual setting

CBT in Family Setting

Individual therapy allows for the therapist to work with the client . Create a plan of care addressing the needs of the client including the family component and social skills training whereas; there is less time to create treatment plans. With individual CBT, clients are able to see the connection between feelings and behavior.

To understand the causes of their symptoms. During my clinical rotation, I met clients with anxiety disorders who effectively used role play procedures, coping modeling, affective education, awareness of bodily anxious reactions, relaxation techniques and other cognitive-behavioral techniques to successfully deal with their anxiety.