Treatment Compliance in Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Description of the Strategy

A distinctive feature of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapies is the emphasis on acquisition of new skills and knowledge. Indeed, cognitive-behavioral therapists attempt to teach patients methods they can use throughout their lives to reduce and/or manage a variety of maladaptive behaviors and cognitions. Learning such strategies implies the importance of active participation in therapy assignments on the part of the patient. Such assignments, conducted both within and between sessions (i.e., as homework), are a cardinal feature of cognitive and behavioral therapies and are considered an essential mechanism of therapeutic change.

Consistent with the idea that cognitive-behavioral therapies are instructive is the assumption that therapy outcome is enhanced when the patient complies with the therapists' directives and assignments. Although the ...