Unit rationale, description and aim
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an intervention of choice in contemporary mental health service delivery and has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment option for a diverse range of consumers. Mental health practitioners therefore need a range of knowledge and skills to successfully facilitate Cognitive Behaviour Therapies in partnership with consumers.
Students will utilise simulated and real consumer case studies to apply knowledge and skills related to CBT in in an integrated fashion to formulate and implement an effective CBT intervention plan. Students will reflect upon and evaluate their own intervention while demonstrating an awareness of its impact on the consumer.
The aim of this unit is to help students build upon knowledge and skills gained from other units to build additional theoretically informed knowledge of culturally responsive and ethical CBT practices.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Explain the behavioural and cognitive foundations ...
Learning Outcome 01
Describe the evidence-base for CBT case formulatio...
Learning Outcome 02
Critically reflect upon the use of a CBT and its i...
Learning Outcome 03
Content
Topics will include:
Evidence base underpinning CBT
- How do we define therapies, and what is CBT?
- What’s CBT’s evidence base, and how does it compare to specific strategies, such as behavioural activation, thought evaluation, and mindfulness?
- Culturally responsive, Ethical & professional issues
- The theory underpinning CBT case formulation
- The process – why is the therapeutic relationship is integral to CBT?
Identifying emotional states and readiness for CBT
- Helping clients identify emotions
- Distinguishing primary and secondary emotions
- Using emotion rating to shift problematic thinking styles and content
- Determining a client’s existing aptitude for CBT
Case Formulation
- A developmental and longitudinal CBT case formulation
- Integrating behaviour, attachment, and schema theories into CBT case formulation
- Setting therapy goals
- Embedding a high degree of collaboration and working alliance in goal setting
Behavioural Interventions utilised in CBT
- Recapping behaviour principles
- Behaviourally-focused interventions
- Self-monitoring
- Activity scheduling
- Arousal reduction
- Graded and imaginal exposure
- Safety behaviours
- Interpersonal skills training
- Grading tasks to shape skills
Cognitive processes underpinning CBT
- Identifying thoughts
- Using Socratic dialogue to identify and generate evidence to evaluate thinking, and facilitate genuine client discoveries
- Prioritizing thoughts based on emotional distress
- Evaluating thought content
- Evaluating thought process
- Targeting beliefs about thinking processes
- Using in-session experiments to evaluate meta-cognitive beliefs
- Using attentional refocusing, mindfulness, to facilitate distance from thinking
Thoughts, beliefs and building resilience
- Identifying cross-situational beliefs
- Using experiments to evaluate cross situational beliefs
- Using Socratic dialogue to identify core beliefs
- Clarifying core beliefs, schema, and values within CBT case formulation
- Helping clients to evaluate maladaptive core beliefs and strengthen resilience
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy used allows for the progressive development of knowledge and skills necessary for the student to be able to demonstrate understanding of ethical and effective professional practice of evidence-based, ethically bound CBT formulations and interventions.
In order to become effective at developing implementing and evaluating CBT case formulations, the student must first develop comprehensive knowledge of theoretical concepts underpinning CBT and the Australian healthcare system and of policy making processes. This will be achieved in Assessment Task 1, through a written assessment that requires students to demonstrate their understanding of the key theoretical concepts underpinning CBT.
In the Assessment Task 2, students will extend their knowledge and critical analysis of CBT by collaborating with peers and engaging with the lecturer through an online discussion forum.
The final task, Assessment Task 3, enables students to demonstrate capacity to critically reflect upon the use of CBT and its impact in practice through an online oral presentation.
To pass this HLSC657 Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, students must demonstrate achievement of every learning outcome and obtain a minimum mark of 50% for the unit.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1 - Written Assessment Enable st...
Assessment Task 1 - Written Assessment
Enable students to demonstrate knowledge of key theoretical concepts underpinning CBT.
30%
Assessment Task 2 - Discussion Forum Facilitate ...
Assessment Task 2 - Discussion Forum
Facilitate student collaboration with peers and engage with the lecturer, in an online environment, to extend their knowledge, critical analysis, and application of CBT in practice.
20%
Assessment Task 3 - Recorded Presentation Enable...
Assessment Task 3 - Recorded Presentation
Enable students to demonstrate capacity to critically reflect upon the use of CBT and its impact in practice.
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This unit uses an active learning approach to support students in exploration of knowledge essential to the discipline. Students are provided with choice and variety in how they learn. Students are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous weekly discussions. Active learning strategies provide students with opportunities to practice and apply their learning in situations similar to their future professions. Activities encourage students to bring their own examples to demonstrate knowledge of clinical practice and to engage constructively with their peers. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress.
Students will have the opportunity to discuss and reflect on the core principles and concepts related to the development and delivery of ethically sound, evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Students will explore the policy context in which CBT is currently offered in Australia, theoretical concepts informing CBT case formulation and interventions and ethical and professional issues pertaining to this psychotherapeutic approach. This will be achieved through student-centred learning and teaching completed through online learning activities. These online activities include inquiry based learning, discussion forums, guided readings, webinars and self-directed learning that will provide students with the opportunity to analyse and critically evaluate CBT in clinical practice.