Jenn Gumbulevich and Sam Phelan Last Blog Post on July 24, 2015

Jenn Gumbulevich:

            Because the last chapter in the book ended more towards the current research in Psychology, I decided to research a little more on cognitive – behavioral psychology. I am going to focus more specifically on therapy, because it’s what I’m interested in doing as a career and because the book only talked about them separately rather than together. When I looked online, I found an article going into detail about what cognitive-behavioral therapy entails. It said cognitive – behavioral therapy is based on cognition, emotion, and behavior all combined and working together. All three processes are valued and equally viewed during therapy as important factors in your overall outcome. The article continues by saying that cognitive behavioral therapy helps people who have negative thoughts that are conditioned or reinforced by bad behavior while having a negative outlook on a situation. This type of therapy came about from two major psychologists, Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck in the 1950’s and 60’s.

            Albert Ellis contributed the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy which involved the ABC Model. The ABC Model stood for A) Activating Event, B) Belief, and C) Consequences. The “activating event” involves an occurrence that induces an emotional or negative response. The “belief” is when the patient is supposed to record on a piece of paper what negative thoughts come to mind from such an event. The “consequence” is when there are negative feelings or behaviors that are brought upon due to the belief, which is due to the activating event.

            Aaron Beck was more of a cognitive psychologist, but he still contributed a lot to the field of cognitive-behavioral therapy. His first contribution was known as the cognitive triad. This included three aspects of a patients mind, their thoughts about their future, their world, and what they think of themselves. If all three are negative, they work together to add to depression. In the article it says, “As these three components interact, they interfere with normal cognitive processing, leading to impairments in perception, memory and problem solving with the person becoming obsessed with negative thoughts.” Beck also included a section on negative self-schemas. He explained that when people have negative beliefs or expectations about themselves, it can lead to focusing on one part of a bad situation rather than looking at it logically as a whole. It can also lead to making errors in logic and causing depression. A third contribution Beck gave towards this field included research on errors in logic. There were several different thinking processes that can be considered illogical such as personalization, overgeneralization etc. All of these ideas contributed more towards cognitive-behavioral psychology and probably more from other psychologists. I found this field very interesting and thought it did a good job of summing up this class.

McLeod, S. (2008). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-therapy.html

1954 – Albert Ellis began teaching his new techniques to other therapists, and by 1957, he formally set forth the first cognitive behavior therapy by proposing that therapists help people adjust their thinking and behavior as the treatment for emotional and behavioral problems. 

https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/

Here is a link to the Warner Brothers studio that has the Harry Potter Studio Tour in it that I went to last weekend! There are some pictures online you can see if you’re interested.

Sam Phelan:
1910 - Freud founded the International Psychoanalytical Association

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/images/vc123.jpg
Here's a link of a picture of an IPA gathering with Freud