Cognitive Behavior

Where did Cognitive Behavior Therapy come from? Cognitive behavior therapy was devised in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. in New York and by Aaron Beck, M.D. in Philadelphia. Although they worked independently of each other, both Ellis and Beck had grown dissatisfied with the traditional psychoanalytic (Freudian) therapies that they thought were ineffective. They both trained with Freud. Both Ellis and Beck believed that peoples’ conscious beliefs and …

…cognitive therapy approach. The three major approaches are: 1) to deactivate the dysfunctional mode of thinking 2) modify the content and structure and then 3) construct a more adaptive mode to neutralize the dysfunctional mode of thinking. The bottom line of dysfunctional thinking is the way a person perceives and event. In my next paper for this class I will present my own theory on this as it relates to what Albert Ellis has presented as his model.