CT is one therapeutic approach within the larger group of cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) and was first expounded by Beck in the 1960s.
Cognitive therapy is based on the cognitive model, which states that thoughts, feelings and behavior are all connected, and that individuals can move toward overcoming difficulties and meeting their goals by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking, problematic behavior, and distressing emotional responses.
Becoming disillusioned with long-term psychodynamic approaches based on gaining insight into unconscious emotions, in the late 1950s Aaron T. Beck came to the conclusion that the way in which his patients perceived and attributed meaning in their daily lives—a process known as cognition—was a key to therapy.
He may then focus on the mistake (which he takes as evidence that his belief is true), and his thoughts about being "useless" are likely to lead to negative emotion (frustration, sadness, hopelessness).
Given these thoughts and feelings, he may then begin to avoid challenges at work, which is behavior that could provide even more evidence for him that his belief is true.
As a result, any adaptive response and further constructive consequences become unlikely, and he may focus even more on any mistakes he may make, which serve to reinforce the original belief of being "useless."
Thoughts that do not meet this description may then be shifted to something more accurate or helpful, leading to more positive emotion, more desirable behavior, and movement toward the person's goals.
[11] The cognitive model was originally constructed following research studies conducted by Aaron Beck to explain the psychological processes in depression.
The GCM is an update of Beck's model that proposes that mental disorders can be differentiated by the nature of their dysfunctional beliefs.
Examples[21] of socratic questions are: False assumptions are based on "cognitive distortions", such as:[22] Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) includes awfulizing, when a person causes themselves disturbance by labeling an upcoming situation as "awful", rather than envisaging how the situation may actually unfold, and Must-ing, when a person places a false demand on themselves that something "must" happen (e.g. "I must get an A in this exam.")
Beck also identified a number of other cognitive distortions, which can contribute to depression, including the following: arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, magnification and minimization.
[26] This model was updated in 2016 to incorporate multiple levels of analyses, new research, and key concepts (e.g., resilience) within the framework of an evolutionary perspective.