- Cognitive Processing Therapy
- Cognitive Remediation Therapy
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
- Cognitive - Behavioral Therapy
- Cognitive - Existential Therapy
- Schema Therapy



Types of Cognitive Therapy

The Concept Underlying ________ Is that Your Thoughts Influence Your Emotions and Behaviors.

This video features Judith Beck discussing the principles of cognitive therapy. It also includes a demonstration of her conducting a therapy session with a client.

Video: Judith Beck and Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive distortions are specific, maladaptive, and automatic patterns of thinking where an individual misinterprets a situation, often leading to emotional distress. A primary goal in cognitive-behavioral therapy is to identify and challenge these errors in thinking. Common examples of cognitive distortions include all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, and jumping to conclusions.

Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive therapy was established in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck. The therapy's development was initially driven by his focus on treating depression, which he theorized was maintained by a client's persistent self-defeating attitude, even when positive factors were present in their life.

History of Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive restructuring is a therapeutic process that involves identifying and modifying negative or distorted thinking patterns. In cognitive therapy, this is often achieved through guided questioning, where the therapist helps a client recognize dysfunctional ideas, challenge specific patterns like catastrophizing thoughts about themselves and their situations, and ultimately find a more positive and logical way to view things.

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach grounded in the idea that a person's thoughts directly dictate their emotions and behaviors. By helping clients identify and alter dysfunctional thought patterns, therapists aim to alleviate emotional distress and foster more logical, rational interpretations of situations.

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- Psychodynamic Therapy 
- Supportive Therapy 
- Humanistic Therapy
- Cognitive Therapy
- Behavior Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Integrative or Holistic Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
- Creative Therapy
- Play Therapy

Types of Psychotherapy

The psychological triad is a conceptual model demonstrating the reciprocal relationships between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It is visually represented as an equilateral triangle with 'thoughts,' 'behaviors,' and 'emotions' at its points, connected by bidirectional arrows that indicate how each component continuously influences the other two.

The Psychological Triad

Emerging in the 1950s, the cognitive revolution was a movement that revived scientific interest in the mind. This shift was driven by new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science, which collectively redirected psychological inquiry back toward mental processes after a prolonged period dominated by behaviorism's focus on external behavior.

Cognitive Revolution (1950s)

Different approaches to psychotherapy. 2009. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/psychotherapy/approaches

Different approaches to psychotherapy

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Dialectical Behavior therapy is a specific form of CBT that is used to help regulate emotions. This type of therapy is usually used to treat individuals with chronic suicidal thoughts, and also people with borderline personality disorders, eating disorders, and PTSD. This approach helps teach new skills to individuals to help them take personal responsibility to change unhealthy behavior. This approach involves both group and individual therapy.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy



Integrative Body Psychotherapy is a holistic approach to treatment, integrating multiple modalities. IBP aims to increase awareness of the ways the body and mind relate and address obstacles to well-being. IBP practitioners teach individuals how to recognize and understand steps they can take to move away from these obstacles. IBP is considered to be a helpful approach for somatization, relationship concerns, and the effects of past trauma.



Integrative Body Psychotherapy




Supportive therapy helps individuals to develop their own resources through guidance and encouragement. This approach helps to reduce anxiety, build self-esteem, improve social and community functioning, and strengthen coping mechanisms.



Supportive Therapy




A therapy approach that is utilized to treat chronic depression that incorporates several components of cognitive-behavioral therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy. This therapy helps people realize the outcomes of their behavior and actions, how to interact healthily with others, change negative coping mechanisms, and better interpersonal skills.

Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP)

A type of psychotherapy that aims to help clients become more self-aware and embrace themselves. Humanistic therapy centers around the belief in individuals' ability to make rational choices and grow to their fullest potential, while also highlighting the significance of empathy and concern for others. Humanistic philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, and Søren Kierkegaard have played a significant role in shaping this type of psychotherapy. 

Humanistic Therapy

Integrative or holistic therapy is characterized by therapists who do not limit themselves to a single type of Psychotherapy. Instead, they incorporate various elements from different approaches and customize their treatment to meet the specific needs of each individual client

Integrative or Holistic Therapy

Cognitive Therapy

Behavior therapy is a therapeutic approach that applies principles of learning to help clients change undesirable behaviors, without focusing on the unconscious mind. It operates on the belief that dysfunctional behaviors, such as phobias or bedwetting, can be resolved by teaching clients new, more constructive behaviors. This therapy utilizes both classical and operant conditioning techniques to facilitate this change.

Behavior Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) centers on the utilization of acceptance, values, mindfulness and conventional behavior change methods with the goal of reducing psychological inflexibility. 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy 

Compassion-focused therapy is an integrated psychotherapeutic approach designed to train individuals in cultivating inner safeness, developing a self-generated internal soothing system, and replacing shame and harsh self-criticism with qualities such as self-kindness, self-understanding, contentment, and gentle self-care.

Compassion-focused Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy centered on helping clients examine and change the relationship between their thoughts and their behaviors. The primary goal is to identify and modify cognitive distortions and self-defeating actions, thereby changing not only how individuals think but also how they act in response to various situations.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A type of therapy that helps clients, often children, to prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth by utilizing a therapeutic process of play. It harnesses children's natural urge to explore and uses it to help them express emotions that might be otherwise difficult to communicate. Play objects allow the child to displace difficult feelings, dreams, fantasies, and traumas. A therapist may observe the behaviors of the child while playing and also utilize play therapy to assist in the diagnosis process. Both nondirective and directed play therapy are possible.

Play Therapy

The sociocultural model in therapy emphasizes the influence of societal and cultural contexts on an individual's mental health. This therapeutic approach involves integrating a client's cultural and social norms into the treatment process from the very beginning. Therapists collaborate with clients to understand their specific cultural patterns, using this information to develop a personalized treatment plan tailored to their unique situation.

Sociocultural Model in Therapy

The psychodynamic perspective is a modern therapeutic approach that evolved from Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories. While it continues to focus on the influence of internal drives, unconscious forces, and childhood experiences on behavior, its application in therapy is typically less intensive than traditional psychoanalysis. The goal is to help individuals gain self-awareness and change problematic patterns in their thoughts, feelings, and relationships.

Psychodynamic Therapy

A client in a therapy session states, "I gave a presentation at work and my boss didn't praise it, so I'm convinced I'm going to be fired. I'm a total failure." The therapist responds, "Let's examine that thought. What is the evidence that not receiving praise means you will be fired? Is there another way to interpret your boss's silence? We can work together to challenge this pattern of thinking and develop more balanced perspectives." Which therapeutic approach is this therapist most likely using?

Traces the sequences of the different operations within the mind - similar to how a computer is broken down into memory units, an input processor, etc.

Information-Processing approach

Ulric Neisser was a key figure in the cognitive revolution, best known for publishing the first textbook on the subject, titled 'Cognitive Psychology,' in 1967. His book became a foundational text for cognitive psychology courses across the United States, helping to solidify the discipline's place in academia.

Ulric Neisser

Noam Chomsky (1928–), an influential American linguist, played a pivotal role in the early days of the cognitive revolution. Dissatisfied with behaviorism's dominance in psychology, he argued that its exclusive focus on external behavior was short-sighted. Chomsky advocated for re-incorporating the study of mental functioning into psychology to provide meaningful contributions to understanding behavior. He is also known for conceptualizing the notion that language arises in part from innate structures in our brain (Universal grammar).

Noam Chomsky

Behaviorism's influence was significantly stronger in American psychology than in European psychology. The cognitive revolution played a crucial role in bridging this gap by helping to re-establish communication between psychologists in Europe and their American counterparts.

Impact of the Cognitive Revolution on Transatlantic Psychology

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary approach that emerged as psychologists began to cooperate with scientists from other fields, such as anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience. Spurred by the cognitive revolution, the influence and prominence of this interdisciplinary perspective continue to resonate in modern-day psychology.

Cognitive Science as an Interdisciplinary Field

Imagine two psychologists are studying how a rat learns to navigate a maze. The first psychologist, working in the 1940s, focuses exclusively on the rat's speed, number of errors, and the specific sequence of turns it makes. A second psychologist, working in the 1960s after a major shift in the field's dominant perspective, would be more interested in which aspect of the rat's performance?

The cognitive revolution provided the primary impetus for the emergence of cognitive psychology by redirecting the field's focus from purely observable behavior to the scientific study of the mind and its underlying mental processes.

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