Direct effects of cognitive therapy skill acquisition on cognitive therapy skill use, idiosyncratic dysfunctional beliefs and emotions in distressed individuals: An experimental study

Publication date: Available online 11 February 2019Source: Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental PsychiatryAuthor(s): Sanne J.E. Bruijniks, Sander A. Los, Marcus J.H. HuibersAbstractExperimental studies that manipulate treatment procedures to investigate their direct effects on treatment processes and outcomes are necessary to find out the effective elements and improve the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. The present study randomized mildly to severely depressed participants into a procedure focused on cognitive therapy skill acquisition (CTSA; n = 27) or a control procedure focused on being exposed to theories of automatic thinking (n = 25) and investigated the direct effects on cognitive therapy (CT) skill use, credibility of idiosyncratic dysfunctional beliefs and strength of emotions. After the procedure, participants were exposed to a sad mood induction and given an assignment to test their CT skills. Participants who received the CTSA procedure used more CT skills compared to participants that received the control procedure, but there were no differences between conditions in the decrease of the credibility of idiosyncratic dysfunctional beliefs and strength of emotions. However, in participants with mild levels of depression, those who underwent the CTSA procedure showed larger decrease in the credibility of their most malleable belief (i.e. mostly automatic negative thoughts) compared to those who received the control proce...
Source: Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research