Course Description
This course explores the basics of cognitive and behavior theories. It covers the methods for assessing, conceptualizing and applying a set of skills or modalities to specific problems of clients with issues of adjustment, anxiety, anger or depressive thinking and other lifestyles challenges, e.g. weight management, stress, medication compliance, issues that are associated with a medical condition, or coping with illness or new diagnosis. Borrowing from a person-centered therapy, CBT will focus on a collaborative client-worker relationship and the client's active participation in decision making about themselves, resulting in the process of their own change (Rosenbaum & Rosen, 1998). Students will also learn how to provide and receive CBT through experiential learning and self-reflexivity while following the CBT process. CBT has been historically Eurocentric, with insignificant consideration to cultural influences that are related to race, ethnicity, disability, religion, social class, sexual orientation and other multidimensional identities. Following the central tenets of the social work program's concentration on diversity and inclusion, this course strengthens its content by recognizing the cultural and environmental complexities of a client's problem. Consequently, this course also acknowledges the potential inaccuracies of such problems due to dysfunctional cognitions. It will integrate ways to empower a client's thinking about "unacceptable environmental conditions, e.g. an abusive relationship, a racist workplace, physical and social barriers to a person who has a disability" (Imawasa & Hays, 2019), conditions that social workers consistently interrogate using the guidelines of the NASW Code of Ethics. Finally, students will learn how to use some cognitive behavioral approaches by acknowledging cultural considerations and nuances with people of multicultural identities and standpoints.
Units
3
