cognitive behavioural therapy for schizophrenia Flashcards
what is cbt?
it takes disorders and stress down to cognitive factors and suggests that it is maladaptive cognitions that maintain emotional distress.
what is maladaptive cognitions?
unhelpful thinking during a situation where it is not suitable or necessary.
what are 2 basic assumptions of CBT?
- patients respond to their own interpretations and the worlds interpretations rather than what is actually true
- thoughts behaviours and feelings are all interelated
how many sessions are necessary?
it involves one-one sessions that occur weekly and may take more than a few weeks. they look to discuss specific symptoms and reverse irrational thinking.
what approaches are included in cbt?
belief modification, focusing and re attribution, normalising and cognitive therapy has an acute phase/
what is belief modification?
where delusional thinking is challenged directly and tested against reality.
what is focusing and re-attribution?
this refers to looking at auditory hallucinations and focus on their physical attribute (e.g. gender) for homework they may be asked to write down what the hear. this aims to reduce the frequency of the voices.
what is normalising?
de-stigmatising the symptoms of schizophrenia and they look at the symptoms as more normal to reduce the fear and stress when the occur.
what is the acute phase?
this involves four different stages:
- cognitive therapy challenging beliefs
- group therapies where they are encouraged to see the irrationalities amongst the group
- sessions with families so patients don’t become absorbed with their symptoms.
- this involves structure activities.
what is a strength of CBT?
it doesn’t just focus on schizophrenia but it also tackles anxiety and depression.
what did Chadwick and Lowe find?
when using CBT 10/12 deluded patients decrease in conviction of their beliefs.
what did Zimmerman find?
CBT can be useful along side drug therapy for people in the acute stage of schizophrenia.
why might CBT be distressing?
because the individual has to focus on distressing symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.
why might CBT lack validity?
they often use self-report data which may be bias as the patients may think they are meant to be improving and therefore they may lie.
what did Kingdon and Turkington find?
35/65 patients in a 5 year follow up were free of symptoms when standard CBT and normalising were used. however this is only 50% effective.
