Anxiety Therapy
Primarily, cognitive therapy is assumed to be concise, centralized, and reliant on a fixed scheme. These assumptions diversify cognitive therapy from the humanistic approach, which is not that structured. The clients’ irrational mindsets can be recuperated relying on three major concepts, which are the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, the ABCDE Model, and the Dysfunctional Thought Record. The ABCDE model is a sequence of cognitions that can be recorded and analyzed as to its influence on the clients’ feelings (Pomerantz, 2014).
The client under consideration, Angela, is having a thought distortion. She catastrophizes the events taking place in her life and has pessimistic views – which are exorbitant.
The best way the anxiety can be mitigated is the ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). The Acceptance refers to ceasing the battle with unfamiliar experiences and gaining self-trust. Commitment to one’s personal values probably needs determining what their values actually consist of and relying on them in order to make decisions. The T stands for taking actions based on the value-related decisions (Pomerantz, 2014).
The written version of the ABCDE model would probably look as follows:
- Activating event: Angela’s prolonged delay in job-finding;
- Belief: Angela’s assumption that the blame for her failures is hers and the sensation of her worthlessness;
- Consequence: Angela’s anxious thoughts that exacerbate her self-consciousness and further delay her success;
- Dispute: getting a job can be complicated for a post-graduate, but Angela will eventually find a job if she does not stop searching;
- Effective new belief: any result is a result in itself; Angela needs to accept – as in the ACT – and do some “practice jumping” on her way to success (Pomerantz, 2014, 448-449).
As to the behavioral therapy, it has served as a starting point to the cognitive one. The therapists observe, hypothesize, and test the validity of their hypotheses deploying an empirical approach (Pomerantz, 2014). In relation to Angela, the therapy relies on a structure that does not presuppose altering the conditions, which is strictly the prerogative of behavioral therapy.
Addiction Withdrawal Treatment
The client Maxine is in her second stage of drug – probably alcohol – withdrawal. Miller, Forcehimes, and Zweben (2011) identify this stage as the “contemplation,” which subsumes the readiness to make a change in the next half a year (p. 111). Above all else, the withdrawal is characterized by obsessive-compulsive disorder which the client is experiencing at the moment. The reasons for such choice of the stage of change are the client’s eagerness to make the right decisions – as well as her being unsure she will be able to make it without support. As to the disorder she suffers, it is stated that drug and alcohol problems are often attended by obsessive-compulsive behaviors (Miller et al., 2011). The pattern in the client’s behaviors can be seen: the client has had three relationships that had ended in a distressing way, with each of the break-ups resulting in a drug relapse. It is obvious that the client has a persisting intrusive thought about getting into a relationship, having it as an overvalued idea. The substance the client can have difficulties with can be alcohol; acute and post-acute withdrawals are often characterized by obsessive-compulsive disorders and anxiety that the client seems to be experiencing when stating her ideas concerning her unlucky relationships and the “importance” of having a new one.
References
Miller, W. R., Forcehimes, A. A., & Zweben, A. (2011). Treating Addiction: A Guide for Professionals. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Pomerantz, A. (2014). Clinical psychology: Science, practice, and culture (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.