CBT (Psychological treatment CRIM)

• Stages of cognitive behavioural treatment

  • Anger management
  • Cognitive preparation
  • Skills acquisition
  • Application
• Anger management - works on the premise that all violence is caused by anger so if a violent individual learns how to control their anger, they will commit less crime when released from prison. It involves the prisoner attending about 20 1hour sessions to control their emotions
• Cognitive preparation - in small group sessions offenders talk, analyse their criminal behaviour and learn to recognise aggressive situations. Using scenarios, they examine how they dealt with different criminal situations and link consequences to actions. This lets the offender know they need to monitor their violent behaviour
• Skills acquisition - Behavioural and cognitive coping skills such as thought stopping are learned to help offenders deal with difficult situations. These can be used in stressful situations to help offenders remain calm while they create an appropriate plan of action.
• Application - This is when skills learned through role playing are practiced to help offenders remain calm in the real world and are then assessed so offenders can see how they could've responded differently.