Theoretical Perspective: Cognitive-Behavioural

Introduction

The cognitive-behavioural approach to psychological assessment has roots in learning theory and cognitive psychology. It is characterized by empirically based, multimethod and multi-informant assessment of behaviours, cognitions, and contemporaneous causal variables in the natural environment. This entry provides an overview of the historical and theoretical foundations of cognitive-behavioural assessment, the strategies and methods used, cultural considerations in its use, and future perspectives.

Historical and Theoretical Foundations

Cognitive-behavioural assessment has been influenced by generations of scholars and by research in multiple disciplines. The concepts and methods of the paradigm are based in applied and experimental behaviour analysis, learning, and cognitive construct systems. Conceptual elements are derived from experimental psychology and the work of behavioural pioneers such as Watson, Pavlov, Hull, Mowrer, and Skinner. The most important contribution from these early researchers is the emphasis on empiricism, which encourages careful observation and precise and frequent measurement of explicitly defined variables. Empiricism remains the supraordinate characteristic of the cognitive-behavioural assessment paradigm.

The methods and foci of behavioural interventions have also played a significant role in the development of cognitive-behavioural assessment. Formal behavioural assessment strategies were initially developed during the proliferation of behaviour therapies in the 1960s, when traditional instruments, which target higher-order variables such as personality traits, were found to be less useful with behavioural methodology's focus on specific, observable behaviours.

Over the next few decades, a wider perspective within the field emerged and the focus of many behaviourists expanded beyond the strictly overt behaviours to include measurement of variables such as sensations, imagery, and psychophysiological functioning (Lazarus, 1973). Theorists such as Bandura, Mischel, Ellis, Mahoney, Meichenbaum, and Beck suggested that cognitions, a person's thoughts, play a significant role in behavioural problems. Although various subparadigms within cognitive-behavioural assessment differ in their emphasis on inferred variables and inner states, all variables targeted in cognitive-behavioural assessment are assumed to be amenable to empirically guided measurement.

Basic Assumptions

Cognitive-behavioural assessment incorporates the following assumptions about the characteristics and causes of behaviour problems (Haynes, 1998; Haynes & O'Brien, 2000): (a) clients often have multiple, related behaviour problems; (b) the importance of any specific behaviour problem differs across clients; (c) behaviour problems have multiple causes that can vary across clients, settings, situations, and time; (d) contemporaneous, social-environmental causes, those occurring closely together in time with behaviour problems, can be important; and (e) cognitions can serve as a causal, moderating, or mediating factor in behaviour problems.

Clients often have multiple, functionally related behaviour problems. For example, a client with marital discord may also be experiencing job difficulties and depressed mood as a result of the marital discord. The client may also increase alcohol consumption to relieve the depressed mood, and the increased alcohol consumption may exacerbate the marital and job difficulties and make it more difficult to handle these difficulties. In addition, the marital discord may have begun as a result of disagreements [Page 1002]with a spouse regarding how to discipline an oppositional child.

The relative importance of behaviour problems may vary across clients. One determines the importance of a behaviour problem in relation to quality of life, or the potential of harm, for the client. For example, two clients who report anxiety in social settings may also report similar problems, such as lack of interest in spending time with friends (social withdrawal), and repetitive negative thoughts (ruminative cognitions). For one client, however, the ruminative cognitions may be more important because thoughts of negative evaluation by co-workers are affecting her job productivity, causing her to lose time from work, and increasing her social withdrawal. For the other client, social withdrawal may be more important because his isolation has fostered depressed mood, ruminative cognitions about his inadequacies, and marital difficulties. For some clients, important variables (such as suicidal behaviours) may occur, but have no identifiable relationships with any social-environmental factors.

...