Current cognitive‐behavioral therapy is a general concept for scientifically validated treatment for well-diagnosed psychopathologies with particular therapeutic approaches. According to David et al. (2018), CBT is the most investigated kind of psychotherapy, and no other type of cognitive therapy can be deemed substantially stronger than CBT. Cognitive behavioral therapy has several advantages that might significantly influence a patient’s well-being.
CBT, for instance, can be as successful as medicine in treating various psychological disorders and beneficial when medication alone has failed. Furthermore, as opposed to other treatments, CBT may be finished in a short amount of time. This approach concentrates on re-training patients’ thinking and changing their behaviors in order to improve their mood (David et al., 2018). As a result, the techniques a patient develops during sessions become valuable, practical, and beneficial tactics that can be adopted into daily life to support them and help them learn to deal with future pressures and challenges, even after therapy is over.
Nonetheless, there are several weaknesses of CBT that may prevent this approach from being effective. In order to benefit from the therapy, for example, a patient must commit to the procedure. In this respect, a psychotherapist can assist and support the patient but cannot help the patient without their involvement. Moreover, there is a need to establish a therapeutic alliance before implementing CBT (David et al., 2018). Otherwise, this therapy might not yield any results and be beneficial. Another shortcoming of CBT is that cognitive‐behavioral therapy may not be effective for those with more severe mental health conditions or learning disabilities because of its organized character.
Culturally-Adapted Cognitive‐Behavioral Therapy
All cultures have their own views and beliefs on dealing with unpleasant emotions and negative experiences, which can vary from ethnopsychology expressed in proverbs to organized religious practices and rituals. These concepts might be used to help teach cognitive‐behavioral therapy concepts and contribute to CBT cultural adaption. For example, Cambodian Buddhism frequently equates aggression and other destructive emotions to fire (Hinton, 2017). This metaphor can be used in therapies to help patients draw a parallel between their feelings and cultural idiosyncrasies.
Another noteworthy fact is that many traditional therapies incorporate some form of a cooling system, such as anointing a person with cold water. In this situation, a therapist can tell the patient that feeling aggressive or angry reminds them of a case when someone brings fire into their house (Hinton, 2017). Moreover, a person can find an analogy that, when frustrated, there are often two fires. One fire is caused by what the person did, such as a child misbehaving, which can later be added to the fire of similar incidents, such as the child’s father mistreating them (Hinton, 2017). Therefore, CBT approaches should be tailored to these populations to improve therapy tolerance, commitment, and general effectiveness.
Additionally, in order to increase acceptance, trauma memory processing might have to be combined with emotion management. As a result, visualization might have to be altered to contribute to the therapy’s efficacy. For instance, it is more effective in CBT therapy to utilize imagery that develops cognitive flexibility and to do so with specific Asian groups by combining the idea of a wind-moved lotus with physical flexibility (Hinton, 2017). For example, in Latino communities, meditation imagery with an allocentric (the belief that one identifies oneself via social interactions) orientation is more successful than individualistic (the concept that one defines oneself by personal qualities) orientation.
References
David, D., Cristea, I., & Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Why cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard of psychotherapy. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9(4), 1-3.
Hinton, D. E., & Patel, A. (2017). Cultural adaptations of cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychiatric Clinics, 40(4), 701-714.