Cognitive-Behavioral Couples Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral couples therapy (CBCT) is a common therapeutic approach used by clinicians who work with couples and families. It emphasizes cognitive, behavioral, and emotional factors and focuses on how thoughts, behaviors, and feelings interact in individuals and between the members of a couple. It is grounded on the premise that altering distorted cognitive appraisals about a relationship event will result in positive changes in behavior and emotions. This will eventually lead to an increase in relationship satisfaction. Cognitive-behavioral couples therapy has strong empirical support for its effectiveness in reducing couple distress and is also applicable to a wide range of other relationship issues that couples may present with. Although CBCT has endured some criticism, it is still considered to be the most popular approach among ...