Choose Your Cognitive Therapist Wisely
Therapists with bad methods will do more harm than good
The issue with cognitive therapy is the actual Therapy part. If someone requires cognitive therapy, how can you be certain that the counselor and the curriculum he/she is using will have the ability to change thinking errors and self-defeating behaviors? There are numerous therapists out there who all have personal interpretations and solutions. Very few, if any, are evidence based with sufficient confirmation that what they are using is correct and valuable.
Practically any counseling program could state that it's cognitive therapy, though few, if any, could prove that it is successful. One might submit that cognitive therapy is a misnomer. The meaning of "therapy" is the treatment of sickness or disability. Employing cognitive therapy in mental illness is almost completely unproductive as you cannot use cognitive restructuring instruction on an individual who isn't cognitive. This is also true for kids. Cognitive therapy is unsuccessful on children for an identical reason: they aren't cognitive thus far.
The problem with using therapists to facilitate cognitive therapy courses is that a good number therapists have emotional illnesses themselves and many live in the box of self-deception. That is, they dont realize that they are sick and consequently they give their problems (bad beliefs) to their clients. A myriad of people attend psycho therapists sessions for years at a great price, still they do not get better but several get worse. In spite of all that capable cognitive life skills counselors with good evidence based curriculum can help people in creating lasting changes in a matter of hours as opposed to days, months and years. This isn't to say that all therapists are unsuccessful. The best counselors/therapists have a positive way of being. Individuals alter their lives because of truth, not counseling techniques. The truth vibrates at a frequency that can prick the veil of self-imposed falsehoods and allow people to overcome years of poor programing. Compare cognitive restructuring life skills VS a clinical method of cognitive therapy. Watch for evidence based cognitive restructuring courses that have the ability to prove that their technique is successful. Look for authors and institutions that have years of experience in creating and running groups. There isn't a book out there that can be a good substitute for genuine hands-on experience.
About the Author
Larry Lloyd, is the director of the American Community Corrections Institute (ACCI) which creates evidence-based cognitive restructuring programs to reduce recidivism. See also their blog at Cognitive Life Skills.com.
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