1. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

2. Objectives By the end of the lesson you should be able to:
describe Cognitive Psychology
explain Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
explain Rational Emotive Therapy

3. Cognitive Psychology
Psychologists who have adopted the Cognitive approach study memory, perception, thinking and use of language.
It focuses on how humans process information.
It focuses on internal processes.
It believes that every action is the result of several mental actions.
Internal processes are studied by looking at external behaviour.

4. PIAGET AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

5. Cognitive Errors Q. What are cognitive errors?
Cognitive errors are irrational / faulty ways of thinking

6. Cognitive therapy attempts to change how the patient reacts to, or thinks about an action or event.
It believes that abnormal behaviour is the result of abnormal thinking
The patient needs to change his/her thinking processes.
This approach compares the brain to a computer and uses computers as models of how the brain functions.

7. Therapy methods such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and RET (Rational Emotive Therapy) are used frequently
Only drugs are used more often to treat mental illnesses. Therefore, patients are successfully treated with this approach.

8. Beck’s Cognitive Triad
Themselves
Depressed People – Have Negative Views On…..
The World
The Future

10. Rational-Emotive Therapy (Ellis 1987)
A = Activating Experience
B = Beliefs & thoughts that go through a persons mind in relation to ‘A’
C = Emotional & Behavioural Consequences
D = Disputing of irrational beliefs that goes on in the therapy
E = The therapies effect
(Hopefully a reconstructed belief system)
Homework = What tasks could the therapist give the client for homework?

11. RET - Albert Ellis

12. RET
Ellis often carried out his therapy in front of a large audience in New York.
He once argued with a man, who suffered with depression that he was wrong to believe that his life was over just because his wife had left him.
By arguing with the client and getting him to say sentences out loud he showed him how pointless it was to look at the negative side, he could convince his client to be happier.
'So what'
'Tough Shit!'

13. ACCORDING TO COGNITIVE THERAPY
Irrational beliefs such as ‘everyone must like
me’ result in disappointment and feelings of
rejection.
It is our beliefs that are faulty and the way
we interpret events in our life.

15. In its simplest form the cognitive approach assumes that addiction behaviour is due to irrational beliefs. 
For example regular gamblers have the irrational belief that the odds are not stacked against them and tend to over-estimate the extent to which their behaviour can affect outcomes.  In particular they tend to under-estimate the money they put in whilst over-estimating their winnings. The cognitive model considers the thinking that underlies the behaviour.