Product Description
Using a process-based approach to personalize CBT for better success
- Presents a unique dynamic approach to CBT
- Shows how to implement this approach
- Provides downloadable tools
The process-based approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a unique method for understanding psychological problems as complex networks of interacting processes. It allows therapists to grasp the individuality, complexity, and dynamics of psychological disorders – things that often get missed in diagnosis-oriented approaches. The authors, both experienced researchers and practitioners of this method, explore how understanding these complex networks enables therapists using CBT to focus on the core processes responsible for a person’s suffering.
First, the reader is shown how emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and somatic processes interact in maintaining maladaptive states and how this approach identifies the points at which therapeutic interventions can be applied to achieve maximum leverage. This is followed by guidance on implementing the approach in practice, including addressing diagnostic issues, to create an individual process-based model network for selecting the right evidence-based interventions. The process-based approach forms a connecting foundation that combines classical CBT with third-wave approaches (acceptance commitment therapy, schema therapy) and integrates helpful recent developments in psychotherapy research, such as evolutionary theories. Practitioners will find the downloadable tools in the appendix invaluable for their clinical practice. This book is of interest to clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, mental health practitioners, students, and trainees.
Praise for the book
“Each era of psychotherapy brings with it new insights, tools, and challenges. The shift towards a process-based approach, as articulated by Svitak and Hofmann, is not just the next phase of this journey but shows every sign of being a transformative leap. It holds the promise of deeper understanding, more effective interventions, and the potential to touch and transform countless lives.”Steven C. Hayes, PhD, Nevada Foundation Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, NV
“Many clinicians and clinical scientists around the world have heard of the important innovation referred to as ‘a process-based approach to CBT’, but in my experience many of those individuals are not quite sure what it is or why it’s important. Now, all answers covering both theory and practice are clearly laid out in this well-written illustration of this approach. All clinicians and therapists should take advantage of this volume to understand the basic principles of dealing with underlying behavioral and affective processes rather than symptoms in their attempts to relieve human suffering associated with psychopathology.”David H. Barlow, PhD, ABPP, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry and the Founder of Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Boston University, MA
“There is a race afoot for the leading theoretical position in CBT and it’s being won by those advocating a process-based approach. The disease model has dominated clinical diagnosis, but it has failed to reflect the reality that 80% of ‘disorders’ are comorbid with other ‘disorders’. This work is an excellent introduction to the rationale, conceptualization, and treatment implications of a process-based therapy. It is concise, powerful, and clear, and will give the reader the understanding and the tools to transcend the fictionalized world of the current diagnostic manual. I highly recommend this excellent book.”Robert L. Leahy, PhD, Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, New York City, NY
“This book is like an eye-opener to the vision of future psychotherapy. Highly integrative and still evidence-based, dynamic case formulations instead of inflexible school-based problem definitions, and open for continuous developments: Psychotherapy overcomes the barriers of traditional thinking, and embraces the complexity and individuality of clinical problems.”Winfried Rief, PhD, Spokesperson of the LOEWE Center DYNAMIC and Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Germany