Created in the 1950s by the legendary Albert Ellis, rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) teaches clients to challenge their irrational thinking. REBT is based on the simple idea that it is not external circumstances that make a person happy or unhappy, but rather internal thoughts about events or oneself. Thinking, feeling, and behavior are…

Positive social relationships have been variously linked to mental well-being, and it is therefore important to more fully understand the factors that may impede positive relationship development. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between elementary school-age children's emotion regulation, relationship problems, adaptive…

The purpose of this study was to assess the cognitive skills of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) thought to be necessary for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Forty children with ASD and forty age-matched typically developing children between the ages of 7-12 years participated. Groups were comparable with regard to nonverbal IQ,…

Several articles have recently questioned the distinction between acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and traditional cognitive therapy (CT). This study presents a reanalysis of data from Zettle and Rains that compared 12 weeks of group CT with group ACT. For theoretical reasons, Zettle and Rains also included a modified form of CT that did…

Contemporary cognitive treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) dates back to 1985, and rests on the premise that infrequent unwanted intrusions are essentially universal. As such, it is not the intrusion that is the focus of treatment but rather the interpretation or appraisal placed upon the intrusion. A number of cognitive domains are…

Three studies were conducted examining the relationship between thoughts of defecation and thoughts of death. In Study 1 and Study 3 it was found that making thoughts of feces salient reduced the accessibility of death thoughts. In Study 2 it was found that making thoughts of death salient decreased the accessibility of feces thoughts. It is…

Individuals with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) exhibit difficulties in the knowledge or correct performance of social skills. This subgroup's social difficulties appear to be associated with deficits in three social cognition processes: theory of mind, emotion recognition and executive functioning. The current study…

The purpose of this experiment was to conduct a dismantling study of cognitive processing therapy in which the full protocol was compared with its constituent components--cognitive therapy only (CPT-C) and written accounts (WA)--for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid symptoms. The intent-to-treat (ITT) sample…

Panic Control Treatment for Adolescents (PCT-A) is a developmentally sensitive and efficacious treatment for adolescents with panic disorder. The present study is a preliminary examination of the relative efficacy of individual treatment components in PCT-A in a sample of treatment completers; the study identified when rapid improvements in panic…

This paper presents cognitive strategies as one major approach to pain management. They are discussed as part of a trimodal system of pain management that also includes behavioral manipulations and physical intervention. The need for a standardized classification to deal with terminological inconsistency in the literature on cognitive management…

This article describes a manualized-group treatment of eating disorders, the attunement in mind, body, and relationship (AMBR) program. The cognitive behavioral and dialectic behavioral research as well as the innovative prevention interventions upon which the program is based (e.g., interactive discourse, yoga, and mediation) are introduced. The…

The commonalities between anxiety and depression have been discussed before, but few have delineated the potentially different mechanisms through which treatments work for these populations. The current study conducted a comprehensive review of child and adolescent randomized clinical trials that tested cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for…

Teaching children and adolescents to recognize how they feel when they are angry and what pushes their buttons enables them to make better choices about how they express their anger. They learn that staying cool gives them the power to create more positive outcomes for potentially negative encounters. Through self-assessment and role-plays, they…

The treatment of body image has to be multifaceted and should be directed toward the treatment of the whole individual - body, mind, and spirit - with an ultimate culmination of acceptance and compassion for the self. This article presents information on a mindful approach to the treatment of body image as it pertains to concerns with body size…

In this article, we describe the acute phase of a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) developed for and utilized in the Treatment for Adolescents With Depression Study (TADS). The acute phase of TADS CBT consists of 8 skills that were considered essential to any CBT intervention for adolescent depression (e.g., mood monitoring, increasing pleasant…