Aaron Beck - Cognitive psychotherapy for personality disorders

Cognitive Therapy by Aaron Beck

Cognitive psychotherapy is one of the areas of the modern cognitive-behavioral direction in psychotherapy. Creator: Aaron Beck (1967). The essence of the direction is that all problems are created by negative thinking.

It all starts with a person’s interpretation of external events, according to the scheme: external events (stimuli) → cognitive system → interpretation (thoughts) → feelings or behavior.

“A person’s thoughts determine his emotions, his emotions determine his behavior, and his behavior in turn determines our place in the world around us.” “It’s not that the world is bad, but how often we see it that way.” — A. Beck

If interpretations and external events diverge greatly, this leads to mental pathology.

A. Beck, observing patients with neurotic depression, drew attention to the fact that themes of defeat, hopelessness and inadequacy constantly sounded in their experiences. Beck concluded that depression develops in people who perceive the world in three negative categories:

negative view of the present: no matter what happens, a depressed person focuses on the negative aspects, although life provides some experiences that most people enjoy;
hopelessness about the future: a depressed patient, picturing the future, sees only gloomy events in it;
decreased sense of self-worth: the depressed patient sees himself as ineffective, unworthy and helpless. Beck created a behavioral therapeutic program that uses self-control, role-playing, modeling, homework, etc.

Psychotherapeutic relationship

The client and therapist must agree on what problem they want to work on. It is problem solving (!), and not changing the patient’s personal characteristics or shortcomings. The therapist must be very empathic, natural, congruent (principles taken from humanistic psychotherapy); there should be no directiveness. Principles:

The therapist and client collaborate in an experimental test of erroneous maladaptive thinking.
Socratic dialogue as a series of questions with the following goals:
Clarify or identify problems
Help in identifying thoughts, images, sensations
Explore the meaning of events for the patient
Assess the consequences of maintaining maladaptive thoughts and behaviors.
Guided Cognition: The therapist-guide encourages patients to address facts, evaluate probabilities, gather information, and put it all to the test.

Techniques and methods of cognitive psychotherapy

Cognitive psychotherapy in Beck's version is structured training, experiment, mental and behavioral training designed to help the patient master the following operations:

Discover your negative automatic thoughts
Find connections between knowledge, affect and behavior
Find facts for and against these automatic thoughts.
Look for more realistic interpretations for them
Teach to identify and change disorganizing beliefs that lead to distortion of skills and experience. Specific methods for identifying automatic thoughts:

1. Empirical testing (“experiments”). Methods:

Find arguments for and against
Constructing an experiment to test a judgment
The therapist refers to his experience, fiction and academic literature, statistics
The therapist incriminates: points out logical errors and contradictions in the patient’s judgments.2. Revaluation technique. Checking the probability of alternative causes of an event.

3. Decentration. With social phobia, patients feel like the center of everyone's attention and suffer from it. Empirical testing of these automatic thoughts is also needed here.

4. Self-expression. Depressed, anxious, etc. patients often think that their illness is controlled by higher levels of consciousness, constantly observing themselves, they understand that the symptoms do not depend on anything, and attacks have a beginning and an end. Conscious self-observation.

5. Decatastrophizing. For anxiety disorders. Therapist: “Let's see what would happen if...”, “How long will you experience such negative feelings?”, “What will happen then? You will die? Will the world collapse? Will this ruin your career? Will your loved ones abandon you? etc. The patient understands that everything has a time frame and the automatic thought “this horror will never end” disappears.

6. Purposeful repetition. Playing out the desired behavior, repeatedly trying out various positive instructions in practice, which leads to increased self-efficacy.

7. Use of imagination. In anxious patients, it is not so much “automatic thoughts” that predominate as “obsessive images”, that is, it is not thinking that maladapts, but imagination (fantasy). Kinds:

Stopping technique: loud command “stop!” - the negative image of the imagination is destroyed.
Repetition technique: we mentally scroll through the fantasy image many times - it is enriched with realistic ideas and more probable contents.
Metaphors, parables, poems.
Modifying imagination: the patient actively and gradually changes the image from negative to more neutral and even positive, thereby understanding the possibilities of his self-awareness and conscious control.
Positive imagination: a positive image replaces a negative one and has a relaxing effect.
Constructive imagination (desensitization): the patient ranks the expected event, which leads to the fact that the forecast loses its globality.

A. BECK'S COGNITIVE APPROACH

In his monograph “Cognitive Therapy and Emotional Disorder” (1976), A. Beck expresses a fundamentally new approach to the correction of emotional disorders, different from the traditional schools of psychoanalysis and behavioral therapy.

A cognitive approach to emotional disorders changes a person's view of himself and his problems. The client is taught the opportunity to see in himself an individual prone to giving birth to erroneous

ideas, but also capable of abandoning erroneous ideas or correcting them.
Only by identifying or correcting thinking
can a client create a life of greater fulfillment for themselves.

The main idea of cognitive psychocorrection by A. Beck is that the decisive factor for the survival of the organism is the processing of information. As a result, behavioral programs are born. A person survives by receiving information from the environment, synthesizing it and planning actions based on this synthesis, i.e. developing your own behavior program.

The program may be normal (adequate)

or
inadequate.
In the case of a cognitive shift in information processing, an anomalous program begins to form. For example, having gained certain experience in certain life situations, people begin to tendentiously interpret their experience: a person for whom the idea of a possible sudden death has special meaning (due to the fact that he has lost one of his close relatives) may, having experienced a threatening episode , begin to interpret normal bodily sensations as a signal of impending death. He develops anxiety

which can develop into painful-anxious behavior, while its behavior program is activated by the survival program. From the entire incoming flow of information, “danger signals” will be selected and “safety signals” will be blocked. And as a result, the client begins to react to relatively minor stimuli as if it were a strong threat, responding emotionally and behaviorally inappropriately.

Activated program for cognitive shift

in information processing. The normal program of correctly perceived and interpreted data is replaced by an “anxious program,” “depressive program,” “panic program,” etc. When this happens, the person begins to experience symptoms of anxiety, depression, or panic.

A. Beck believes that each person has his own weak point in cognitive functioning - “cognitive vulnerability.” It is this that predisposes a person to psychological stress.

Personality (according to A. Beck) is formed by schemes

or cognitive structures that represent basic beliefs. These schemas begin to form in childhood based on personal experiences and identification with significant others. Each person forms his own concept of himself, others, the world and the concept of his existence in the world. These concepts are reinforced by a person’s further experience and, in turn, influence the formation of other beliefs, values, and positions.

Schemas are stable cognitive structures that become active when exposed to specific stimuli, stress, or circumstances. Schemas can be either adaptive or dysfunctional. For example, the “cognitive triad of depression” includes:

· negative self-image (“I am unfit, worthless, a rejected loser”);

· negative view of the world (the client is convinced that the world makes excessive demands on him and erects insurmountable barriers to achieving goals and that there is no pleasure or satisfaction in the world);

· a nihilistic view of the future (the client is convinced that the difficulties he is experiencing are insurmountable. Suicidal thoughts are born from a feeling of complete hopelessness).

Thus, emotional disturbances and behavioral disorders are viewed as mediated by cognitive structures and actual cognitive

processes (in which thought-cognition acts as intermediate variables).

Psychological disorders preceding the stage of neurophysiological disorders are associated with aberration

thinking. (By aberration of thinking, A. Beck understood disturbances at the cognitive stage of information processing that distort the vision of an object or situation.) Distorted cognitions, i.e. Cognitive distortions cause false beliefs and self-signals and, as a result, inadequate emotional reactions.

Cognitive biases are systematic errors in judgment influenced by emotions. These include

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1. Personalization - the tendency to interpret an event in terms of personal meanings. For example, people with increased anxiety believe that many events that are completely unrelated to them concern them personally or are directed against them personally. So, having met the frowning gaze of the hallway, the client thinks: “He feels disgusted with me. Everyone feels disgust when they see me.” Thus, the client overestimates both the frequency and the degree of negative feelings that he causes in other people.

2. Dichotomous thinking. A neurotic client tends to think in extremes in situations that touch his sensitive areas, such as self-esteem, with the possibility of being in danger. An event is designated only in black or white, only as good or bad, beautiful or terrible. This property is called dichotomous thinking. A person perceives the world only in contrasting colors, rejecting halftones and a neutral emotional state.

3. Selective abstraction (extraction). It is the conceptualization of situations based on details extracted from the context, while ignoring other information. For example, at a noisy party, a young man begins to be jealous of his girlfriend, who bowed her head to another person in order to hear him better.

4. Arbitrary conclusions - conclusions that are unsubstantiated or even contradict the obvious facts. For example, a working mother at the end of a hard day concludes: “I am a bad mother.”

5. Overgeneralization —

unjustified generalization based on a single case.
For example, the client made a mistake, but thinks: “I always do everything wrong.”
Or after an unsuccessful date, a woman concludes: “All men are the same. They always

they will treat me badly.
I never
succeed in relationships with men.”

6. Exaggeration (catastrophization) - exaggeration of the consequences of any events. For example, the client thinks: “If these people think badly of me, it will be simply terrible!”; “If I’m nervous during the exam, I’ll definitely fail and they’ll kick me out right away.”

99 Stages of cognitive correction work

1. Reducing problems —

identification of problems that have the same causes and their grouping. This applies to both symptoms (somatic, psychological, pathopsychological) and emotional problems themselves. In this case, strengthening of the targets of corrective action is achieved.

Another option for reducing problems is to identify the first link in the chain, which starts the entire chain of symbols.

2. Awareness and verbalization of maladaptive cognitions that distort the perception of reality.

Maladaptive cognition

is any thought that evokes inappropriate or painful emotions and makes it difficult to solve a problem. Maladaptive cognitions are of the nature of “automatic thoughts”: they arise without any preliminary reasoning, reflexively. For the client, they are plausible, well-founded, and beyond doubt. “Automatic thoughts” are involuntary and do not attract the client’s attention, although they direct his actions.

To recognize maladaptive cognitions, the technique of “collecting automatic thoughts” is used.

The client is asked to focus on thoughts or images that cause discomfort in a problem situation (or similar to it). By focusing on automatic thoughts, the client can recognize them and record them. Usually, outside of a problem situation, these thoughts are difficult to recognize, for example, in people suffering from phobias. Their identification becomes easier when actually approaching such a situation. Repeated approach or immersion in a situation allows you to first realize, “collect” them, and then, instead of an abbreviated version (as in a telegram), present it in a more expanded form.

3. Distancing is a process of objective consideration of thoughts, in which the client views his maladaptive cognitions as psychological phenomena isolated from reality.

After the client has learned to identify his maladaptive cognitions, he needs to learn to look at them objectively, i.e. distance yourself from them.

Distancing increases the client's ability to differentiate between an opinion that needs to be justified (“I believe that ...”) and an irrefutable fact (“I know that ...”). Distancing develops the ability to differentiate between the external world and one’s relationship to it. By substantiating and proving the reality of his automatic thoughts by the client, the psychologist makes it easier for the client to distance himself from them and develops in him the skill of seeing hypotheses in them rather than facts. In the process of distancing, the way of distorting the perception of the event becomes clearer to the client.

4. Changing the rules governing the rules of conduct.

To regulate their lives and the behavior of other people, clients use rules (prescriptions, formulas). These systems of rules largely determine the designation, interpretation and evaluation of events. Those rules for regulating behavior that are absolute in nature entail regulation of behavior that does not take into account the real situation and therefore creates problems for the client.

In order for the client not to have such problems, he needs to modify them, make them less generalized, less personalized, more flexible, more taking into account reality.

The content of the rules for regulating behavior is centered around two main parameters: danger - safety and pain - pleasure. The danger-safety axis includes events associated with physical, psychological or psychosocial risk. A well-adapted person has a fairly flexible set of precise rules that allows them

with the situation, interpret and assess the existing degree of risk. In situations of physical risk, the indicators of the latter can be sufficiently verified by one or more characteristics. In situations of psychological or psychosocial threat, verification of such indicators is difficult. For example, a person who is guided by the rule “It will be terrible if I am not up to par” experiences difficulties in communication due to an unclear definition of the concept

“to be on top,” and his assessment of the effectiveness of his interactions with his partner is associated with the same uncertainty. The client projects his assumptions about failure onto others’ perceptions of him.

All methods of changing rules related to the danger-safety axis come down to restoring the client’s contact with the avoided situation. Such contact can be restored by immersing oneself in the situation in the imagination, at the level of real action with a clear verbalization of new rules of regulation, allowing one to experience a moderate level of emotions.

Rules centered around the pain-pleasure axis lead to an exaggerated pursuit of certain goals to the detriment of others. For example, a person who follows the rule “I will never be happy unless I am famous” condemns himself to ignoring other areas of his relationships in favor of slavishly following this rule. After identifying such positions, the psychologist helps the client realize the flawed nature of such rules, their self-destructive nature, and explains that the client would be happier and suffer less if he were guided by more realistic rules.

Classification of behavioral rules

Rules that formulate values that evoke certain stimuli that are subjectively perceived differently generate positive or negative emotions in customers (for example: “Unwashed vegetables are carcinogenic”).

2. Rules associated with the impact of the stimulus (for example: “After the divorce, everything will be different”).

3. Behavioral assessments (for example: “Because I stutter, no one listens to me”).

4. Rules related to the emotional and affective experience of the individual (for example: “At the mere memory of the exam, I get a shiver in my back,” “I have no more hope”).

5. Rules related to the impact of the reaction (for example: “I will be more punctual so as not to anger the boss”).

6. Rules associated with obligation and arising in the process of socialization of the individual (for example: “A person must receive a higher education in order to be happy”).

5. Changing attitudes towards the rules of self-regulation.

6. Checking the truth of the rules, replacing them with new, more flexible ones. Initially, it is advisable to use productive problem solving skills

client in a non-problematic area, and then generalize these skills into an emotional-problem area.

Correction goals. Primary goal -

correction of inadequate cognitions, awareness of the rules of inadequate information processing and replacing them with correct ones.

Cognitive psychocorrection

Cognitive psychology emerged as a response to behaviorism and Gestalt psychology. Therefore, in cognitive psychocorrection the main attention is paid to the cognitive structures of the psyche and the emphasis is on personality, personal constructs and, in general, logical abilities. The cognitive approach is based on theories that describe personality from the point of view of the organization of cognitive structures. It is with them that the psychologist works in correctional terms, and in some cases we are talking not only about violations of the cognitive sphere itself, but also about the difficulties that determine communication problems, internal conflicts, etc. Cognitive psychocorrection is focused on the present. This approach is directive, active and focused on the client’s problem, used both individually and in group form, as well as for the correction of family and marital relationships.

The following features :

The main attention is paid not to the client’s past, but to his present—thoughts about himself and the world. It is believed that knowledge of the causes of violations does not always lead to their correction: for example, if a person comes to the doctor with a broken bone, then the doctor’s task is to heal the fracture, and not to study the reasons that led to it.
The basis of correction is learning new ways of thinking.
Widespread use of a system of homework aimed at transferring acquired new skills into the environment of real interaction.
The main task of correction is changes in the perception of oneself and the surrounding reality, while it is recognized that knowledge about oneself and the world influences behavior, and behavior and its consequences affect ideas about oneself and the world.

In the cognitive approach, two directions can be distinguished:

Cognitive-analytical.
Cognitive-behavioural.

Cognitive-analytical direction

The methodological and theoretical basis of this direction are the works of J. Piaget, L.S. Vygotsky, the theory of D. Kelly, the works of A. Riehle.

The main task is to create a model of a psychological problem that would be understandable to the client and with which he could work independently.

The model is based on D. Kelly's repertory grid method and represents a set of consistent and logically interconnected hypotheses (the so-called procedural sequence module), in which perception, emotions, actions and thoughts interact. The module elements are in a reciprocal relationship: each element causes the next one, and the last one again causes the triggering element, which is often perceived by the client as the main problem.

The psychologist D. Kelly considered the task of the psychologist to be to clarify unconscious categories of thinking (which are the source of negative experiences) and to teach the client new ways of thinking. To do this, he created techniques for directly correcting inadequate ways of thinking.

Basic concepts used in the cognitive-analytical direction: “traps”, “dilemmas”, “obstacles”.

Traps are complex, repeatable behavioral patterns. For example, a client's feeling of insecurity gives rise to a desire to demonstrate confident behavior. This desire leads to observing expressions of confidence in others and copying similar behavior, which leads to even greater distance from others and creates a fear of loneliness. The fear of loneliness is associated with the rejection of a confident model of behavior, which, in turn, contributes to the awareness of failure and an increased feeling of insecurity.

The initial and final element of this process is a feeling of uncertainty. The specificity of the psychological organization of this client is such that any attempt to overcome the feeling of uncertainty (within the framework of this module) leads to its intensification.

Dilemmas are behavioral strategies built on alternative thinking and involving two mutually exclusive forms of behavior. For example, the client has a strong desire for intimacy with another person. However, the emerging form of intimacy is such that the client loses independence and a feeling of dependence arises. Independence means the exact opposite of intimacy and causes a feeling of loneliness. Thus, the client has a dilemma: either he is independent, but lonely, or he is close to his loved one, but dependent. The client is not satisfied with both of these options, and he demonstrates each of them in turn, while experiencing suffering and dissatisfaction.

Obstacles are a behavior in which, when setting a goal, the client does not realize and does not take into account its seriousness. An example would be a frustrated client attempting to quit smoking. At the same time, the goal - an attempt to quit smoking - is unattainable, since when it is set, the client is aware of only some (visible) aspects of smoking (damage to his health, others, unpleasant odor, expenses, etc.), but does not realize that smoking is for him is an important element of coping behavior, and is built into the strategy for dealing with stress. With any attempt to quit smoking, discomfort increases and tolerance to frustration and stress sharply decreases, which increases the desire to smoke.

Main stages of working with a client:

Diagnostic.
Active interaction.
Break.
Final.

1. Diagnostic stage. Getting to know the client’s problems, in-depth study of his biography, formulating his problems together with the client.

The stage ends with the transfer of a letter to the client, which outlines the episodes of his biography, in the opinion of the psychologist, related to the present problem, reveals the psychological meaning of these episodes, summarizes the psychologist’s ideas about the causes of the problem, reveals the connection between the situation in which the symptoms arise and the existing “neurotic ways” behavior" and strong emotional experiences.

The client reads the letter first on his own, and then in the presence of a psychologist. After reading, the wording and causes of the problem are clarified, discussed with the client, and goals and a correction plan are adopted.

The stage consists of 3-5 meetings.

2. Active stage. The task of this stage is to teach the client to see non-adaptive forms of his own behavior. By observing himself (using various techniques for this - keeping a home diary, filling out cognitive maps, etc.) and discussing the results of observations with a psychologist, the client begins to understand what processes control his life. This stage consists of 9-12 meetings.

3. Break. Within 2-3 months. the client independently (without meeting with a psychologist) uses the learned forms of behavior in everyday life.

4. Final stage. The client and the psychologist discuss progress in the client’s situation, new forms of behavior, and problematic behavior of the client in order to refine its most difficult elements.

This stage consists of 3-4 meetings.

In the situation of clients with pronounced psychological problems, correctional work is carried out without interruption to maintain a high level of motivation for interaction and to provide emotional assistance and support to the client.

Cognitive-analytical correction is indicated for clients with personality disorders, depressive reactions, fears, disturbances of desires, suffering from addictions of various types (alcohol, drugs, etc.), psychosomatic diseases.

The goals of cognitive psychocorrection are:

correction of erroneous information processing;
Helping clients change beliefs that support maladaptive behavior and maladaptive emotions.

Psychologist's position. The position of a psychologist is quite directive; he is a teacher, a mentor.

Both cognitive and some behavioral techniques are used to challenge dysfunctional beliefs and promote more realistic adaptive thinking. Cognitive psychocorrection assumes that an individual’s problems arise mainly from certain distortions of reality based on erroneous premises and assumptions. These misconceptions arise as a result of incorrect learning during the process of cognitive or cognitive development of the individual. And from here comes the formula for influence: the psychologist helps the client find distortions in thinking and learn alternative, more realistic ways of formulating their experience. Cognitive psychotherapy initially aims to relieve symptoms, including problem behavior and logical distortions, but its ultimate goal is to eliminate systematic biases in the client's thinking. Cognitive psychocorrection considers the patient's beliefs as hypotheses that can be tested using a behavioral experiment.

Behavioral experiment - testing distorted beliefs or fears in a real-life situation. The cognitive psychologist does not tell the client that his beliefs are irrational or wrong, or that he needs to accept the psychologist's beliefs. Instead, the psychologist asks questions to elicit information about the meaning of the functions and consequences of the client's beliefs. Ultimately, the client decides whether to reject, modify, or maintain his beliefs after recognizing their emotional or behavioral consequences. Thus, D. Kelly placed at the center of his theory of personal constructs the idea that the main thing is what means a person has to describe the world and predict future events.

According to D. Kelly, a person builds an image of reality on the basis of special individual conceptual scales that make it possible to establish similarities and differences between events. The simplest examples of such scales are: good - evil; strong - weak; smart - stupid. These scales (they are also personal constructs), included in complex relationships, form systems that make it possible to put forward hypotheses about the world.

Failure to confirm hypotheses entails either rejection of the construct or restructuring of the relationships between constructs. Personal difficulties, according to Kelly, are caused by the inadequacy of constructs and difficulties in restructuring them. And accordingly, corrective efforts must be directed towards this.

Technicians

1. “Fixed role” method . To solve the issue of restructuring personal constructs, D. Kelly proposed a technique that he called the “fixed role” method. During the correctional interaction, the client is asked (based on appropriate techniques) to look at the world through the eyes of another person and behave accordingly. The client, with the help of a psychologist, actively experiments with the assumed roles of hypothetical characters. An essential feature is that the role-playing game takes place not in special (corrective) conditions, but in the client’s real life.

In order to find out how the client structures his image of “I” within the framework of his system of personal constructs, the psychologist asks the client to write a short play in which he would be the main character. This technique allows you to get a complete image of the client’s personality, and not just a set of good and bad qualities that characterize the client.

The psychologist clarifies what meaning the client puts into the words he uses, how he takes into account his life experience in attempts to support the “I-concept” and how he sees the development of his “I” in the future.

Then the psychologist invites the client to write an essay: to characterize himself through the eyes of another person who knows the client well. This other person will become the character whose role the client will play in the future.

After the essay is written, the client is asked to imagine that he will be temporarily absent (for example, going on vacation), and his place will be taken by a character into whom he will have to try to transform himself. To do this, the client needs to try to imagine in every detail what he could say, think, do, feel, and even what dreams he could have.

Having analyzed the client’s characteristics from the point of view of the main factors that he used to describe himself, the psychologist prepares a scenario for the role to be played.

The role offered to the client must include at least one characteristic that is opposite to his self-description. It can be selected on the basis of the polarity used by the client himself: for example, in self-description the client uses the construct “cautious - aggressive” or the client is offered a characteristic that has never even occurred to him and which he will not easily integrate into the existing system of constructs.

According to D. Kelly, it may be useful for the client to analyze the consequences of behavior that is still unknown to him, playing a role created on the basis of a new construct. D. Kelly insisted that the proposed role be played precisely if it was understood in the light of the theory of personal constructs. The client must act within the role, taking into account the views of others and focusing not only on the behavior of others, but also on the differences in points of view.

The psychologist proceeds from the fact that the purpose of the role-playing game is not to “eradicate” the client’s personality and replace it with a new personality (therefore, direct criticism or doubts about the integrity of the client’s personality are unacceptable), but to understand that the role being played refers to a hypothetical personality created as opposite personality of the client. By playing the role, the client tests the hypothesis about his personality, formulated together with the psychologist. However, since the client never imagined that there were alternatives to his personality, it is difficult for him to accept that the latter is a hypothetical construct and everything that the client experienced and experienced previously were various consequences of his behavior. By accepting a new, invented role, it is easier for the client to consider it as a hypothesis.

During “rehearsals,” the psychologist can play the roles of people significant to the client or exchange roles with the client himself. D. Kelly considered this exchange particularly important, believing that by doing so the client was trying to reconstruct the views of other people. The latter is a necessary prerequisite for successful role interaction. The psychologist must be able to show the client how particular hypotheses can be used as a basis for structuring interactions between him and other people and for interpreting the results of these interactions.

By acting out various situations with significant people, the client gradually begins to realize that he can more successfully experiment with interpersonal relationships, using his own behavior as an “independent variable”, i.e. his behavior can act as a variable in any situation that is potentially under control and can be systematically managed.

Gradually, as new skills are acquired, the client may discover that he is able to evoke in his social environment exactly the reactions that he intended to evoke. The client becomes a researcher in an endless program in which he uses his own behavior to pose more and more new questions and in which the only independent variable in all experimental situations is his own behavior.

At the end of psychocorrectional work (in general it lasts 1-2 weeks), the client is allowed to return to his previously characteristic role behavior. Having “returned” to his former self, the client discusses the experience gained with the psychologist.

Finally, the psychologist transfers responsibility to the client for evaluating the experience he has acquired and for what he will subsequently do in light of this new experience. D. Kelly argued that the client should not try to play the role proposed to him in the future, even if the experiment was very successful. The task for the client becomes the construction of his own personality in new and new series of experiments that can last a lifetime.

By playing the role of a new personality with a new view of himself and others - first alone with a psychologist, and then in real life - the client becomes convinced that many of the fears underlying his problems are vain and groundless and he is capable of new constructive behavior.

2. “Climbing the stairs . The technique allows the client to explore the hierarchy of constructs. If the client prefers to use subordinating constructs, then the psychologist asks him questions: “Why? How is it better for you to play submissive roles?” Discussing constructs using questions that begin with the word “why” is like climbing up a ladder.

3. “ Folding the pyramid .” This technique is very similar to the “Stair Climbing” technique, but instead of the psychologist asking “why?” asks the question “how?” The procedure for folding a pyramid is a kind of “downward” movement, towards concretizing the description of behavior due to the action of a particular construct, and “Climbing the stairs” is an “upward” movement, towards the search for a broader motive, which is triggered by the question “why?”, i.e. .e. to the discovery of a more abstract construct.

4. " ABC model ". This technique involves asking the client to characterize each pole of the construct under study. For example, a woman is overweight. The psychologist asks her the following questions: “What advantages does she have as a result of being overweight? What disadvantages does being overweight bring into her life?” By answering questions posed in this way, the client has the opportunity to determine the boundaries of the construct and make attempts to rebuild it.

What happens during a cognitive neurocorrection session

Cognitive neurocorrection is work directly with various mental functions (memory, spatial representations, speech), as well as with various types of perception (visual, auditory, tactile and somatognosis - perception of one’s own body).

In the process of cognitive neurocorrection, work is done on the fluency of speech and movements with the help of special exercises. The methods used make it possible to work on individual problematic aspects of each function: articulation, orientation in external space, the nominative (naming) function of speech (the ability to correctly name objects and phenomena), understanding of prepositions, etc. Gradually, tasks for the development of thinking processes, logical and creative tasks are included.

At this stage, the number and level of complexity of exercises for correcting various mental processes are initially selected in accordance with the initial individual plan, and in the process of work the composition of the exercises changes depending on the progress and successes achieved.

Complex neuropsychological correction allows you to develop the necessary arbitrariness of mental activity in a child and teach him to better control his behavior.

Neuropsychological diagnostics and correction are carried out by a certified psychologist with special training in clinical neuropsychology.