Analyze the challenges to practice cognitive therapy and methodological issues in research. Apply a cognitive approach to a person exhibiting Panic Disorder.

Cognitive Therapy has been criticized for focusing on positive thinking, denying the importance of clients past, being technique oriented, and working on how to subdue the behavior and not looking at the underlying issue. Specific challenges to practice cognitive therapy are objectivism, materialism, hedonism, atomism, and universalism (Lambert 2004).

•Objectivism is considered to constrain therapy innovation, the understanding of therapists’ values and is biased in favor of objective therapy strategies (Lambert 2004).

•Materialism is associated to empiricism, and the notion that only material objects are knowable (Lambert 2004).

•Hedonism is explained as that assumption that all living things seek pain, in a therapeutic setting is implies that if there are no benefits in something if no benefits are provided to self (Lambert 2004).

•Atomism refers to the idea that each atom must first exist as a self contained entity and then cross time and space to interact with other atoms (Lambert 2004).

Atomism “accounts for the emphasis on individual diagnosis and its therapeutic treatment as well as relativistic moral values” (Lambert 2004).

•Univeralism is based on the concept of matching a diagnosis and treatment can be universal (Lambert 2004).

Some methodological issues in cognitive therapy are:•Defining psychotherapy outcomes•Conceptualizing measures and methods•Influence of the assessor•Contaminated judge characteristics•influence of idiosyncratic interpretations of itemsPANIC DISORDERPD usually starts suddenly with the most common age of onset being in the mid-to-lateTwenties. Stressful life events are quite common around the time of onset. These events involve threat of future crisis. The cognitive procedure for a patient with PD would be as follows:•Identify the negative feeling•Educating the patient about what is occurring and why it is important•Teach and implement distraction techniques•Uncover the verbal challenges of automatic thought process.

•Focus on Behavior experiments (hyperventilation, body focus task, paired associate task)•Relaxation techniques•Working with images•Removal of other blocks.

References:Clark, D.