Write a 5 pages paper on specialist skills in cognitive behavioral therapy. The cognitive model was adopted in the intervention of the client’s case of depression. In principle, the cognitive model, as developed by Aaron Beck, helps clients to overcome specific challenges by altering their thought patterns, behavior, and emotions. At the functional analysis stage, the model allows the therapist to guide the client in recognizing the cognitive distortion of depression as manageable and avoidable. The cognitive model involves the identification of automatic negative patterns of thought that trigger depression in order to replace them with alternative thought patterns, which are positive. In this particular case, the objective is to replace the client’s negative thoughts of depression with more positive thoughts.

The application of the cognitive model in the case of the depressed client involved a range of effective skills that effectively helped in reversing the directions of though as a starting point of achieving a positive outlook on life and her self-worth. The skills include problem listing and prioritizing, setting homework, goal setting, use of thought record, Socratic questioning, and guided discovery. Other skills include identifying and planning of cognitive distortions, eliciting, evaluating, and challenging thoughts, assumptions, and logical errors. Action planning, reviewing, and evaluation are also key skills.

The therapist employed the skills of Socratic questioning to allow the client to discover the dimensions of depression. Through such questioning, it was possible for the client to adjust to the reality of the challenge in a way that allowed her to prepare her internal strengths for positive adjustment. The use of such skills was consistent with the cognitive model in ways that allowed the client to adjust positively to the situation. The client was able to recognize the reality of depression from multiple angles. She could realize that she could still be happy by adopting alternative lifestyles other than the kind of life she had got accustomed to. For instance, the client was made to realize that socialization and a positive adjustment with the family were useful for her happiness and the reclamation of self-esteem.