THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY FOR ANXIETY ANDDEPRESSION

Cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) involves a highly diverse set of term s and procedures. In this review, the origins of CBT are briefly consi dered, and an integrative theoretical framework is proposed that (a) d istinguishes therapy interventions targeted at circumscribed disorders from those targeted at generalized disorders and (b) distinguishes in terventions aimed at modifying conscious beliefs and representations f rom those aimed at modifying unconscious representations in memory. In terventions aimed at altering consciously accessible beliefs are relat ed to their theoretical bases in appraisal theories of emotion and cog nitive theories of emotion and motivation. Interventions aimed at modi fying unconscious representations are related to their theoretical bas es in learning theory and findings from experimental cognitive psychol ogy. In the review, different formulations of CBT for anxiety disorder s and depression are analyzed in terms of this framework, and theoreti cal issues relating to self-representations in memory and to emotional processing are considered.