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Old March 19th, 2005, 10:07 PM
James Pretzer James Pretzer is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 283
Default Non-specific factors in CT/CBT

Yes, you're right in suggesting that non-specific factors play an important role in all approaches to psychotherapy, including CT and CBT. Most works written on CBT presume that it is necessary to establish a good therapeutic relationship before starting to use cognitive-behavioral interventions.

In writing about CT, Beck has emphasized the importance of establishing a collaborative relationship and has gone into some detail about the therapeutic relationship. If you take a look at the Cognitive Therapy Checklist (I believe it is Appendix A in Cognitive Therapy of Depression) it gives a pretty good picture of the type of relationship he sees as being conducive to CT. Another good option is to look at Denise Davis & Jesse Wright's article about the therapeutic alliance in CT (cited in the archives at http://www.behavior.net/forums/cogni...96/msg121.html) or Zindel & Segal's book Interpersonal Process in Cognitive Therapy.

It is important to note that if a therapist is using CT techniques without establishing a good collaborative relationship and a strong therapeutic alliance, they aren't doing good CT. The techniques don't work nearly as well without a good therapeutic relationshp.
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