CBT

Subdecks (1)

Cards (212)

  • Anger management
    A form of cognitive behavioural treatment in which (violent) offenders are encouraged to recognise what triggers their anger, as well as being taught techniques to help them regulate their behaviour
  • Anger management approach

    Assumes that anger is one possible cause of offending behaviour
  • Aaron Beck's Cognitive Triad

    • Beck proposed that good mental health is the result of rational/prosocial thinking
    • He argued that there are common irrational/anti-social beliefs that explain the way people act
    • People who commit crimes have irrational/anti-social beliefs about the world eg schema of personal entitlement or self-dominance, misinterpret social cues as potential threats
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
    • Anger management training is an application of CBT
    • CBT is a type of therapy used to treat many different forms of mental health disorders
    • Therapist will explore beliefs that are linked to their criminal involvement - the job is to identify potential influencing beliefs/schemata used in their reaction to events
    • Help the patient by challenging what they think (belief aspect of the therapy)
    • Help the patient change the way they act to improve the symptoms they are having (consequence part of the therapy)
    • Based on the understanding that the way we think affects how we feel, and how we feel influences how we behave
    • If a person changes the way they think (belief), their behaviour should also change (consequence)
    • If they change a negative/irrational belief to a positive/rational one, then there will be positive consequences
  • Anger management
    • Assumes that the offenders inability to control their anger is the root cause of offending
    • Raymond Novaco (1975) suggests that some offenders are more likely to see certain situations as threatening and stressful, and this leads them to react aggressively or violently, rather than rationally
    • The offender's appraisal of a situation acts as a trigger for anger, and so is cognitive in nature
    • From a behaviourist perspective, anger is reinforced by the offender's feelings of control that anger gives them in that situation
    • Therefore, we can see that anger results from cognitive and behavioural problems, so treatment needs to tackle both
  • Anger management treatment
    1. Cognitive preparation
    2. Skill acquisition
    3. Application and Practice
  • Cognitive preparation
    • Working with a trained therapist, the offender reflects on situations that have triggered their anger in the past and considers whether they could have reacted differently
    • Eg an individual who typically becomes violent if someone makes physical contact with them at a busy bar is encouraged to redefine the situation as non-threatening (by rationalising that the person may have been pushed themselves)
    • In this way, events that may have been 'flashpoints' in the past are gradually perceived more rationally
  • Skill acquisition
    • Offenders use a total range of behavioural techniques to help them cope more effectively with anger provoking situations
    • These may be quite simple steps, eg counting to 10 to temper our reaction to a stressful event
    • This kind of self-talk promotes calmness rather than aggression, and is likely to become an automatic response if practised regularly
    • Some behavioural strategies deal with the physiology of anger, such as meditation and deep breathing
    • The aim is to control one's emotions rather than being controlled by them
  • Application and Practice
    • The therapist devises situations in which the offender is able to demonstrate the skills they have been taught
    • One way this is achieved is by reconstructing events when the offender lost control in the past
    • Eg the offender and the therapist could simulate the condition of queueing at a bar for a drink
    • Eg by deliberately provoking the offender by pushing them from behind whilst 'at the bar'
    • This is to test whether the new techniques have been internalised
    • H/E it's a roleplay and the offender knows it's not real
  • Jane Ireland (2004) Investigated anger management within an institutional setting
  • Procedure in Ireland's study
    1. Offenders were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 conditions
    2. One group received a cognitive behavioural anger management treatment program, similar to that described above
    3. The second group received no treatment until later, acting as a waitlist control group
    4. The treatment group were given 12 sessions of anger management and there were 3 measures of progress
    5. These were an interview and a questionnaire for participants and a behaviour checklist completed by the prison staff
    6. Data for all of these measures was gathered two weeks before and eight weeks after treatment
  • Individual differences in effectiveness of anger management
    • Anger management works best with people who have a history of violent offending
    • Offenders who do not display 'treatment of readiness' are unlikely to benefit from therapy
    • Unless offenders admit there is a problem and accept the need for change, then anger management has limited effectiveness
  • Strength of anger management
    • It addresses different aspects of offending behaviour - the therapy is an interdisciplinary approach that works on a number of different levels: cognitive (phase 1), behavioural (phase 2), and social (phase three) during role-play
    • This acknowledges the fact that offending is a complex psychological activity that requires an eclectic approach to treatment
  • Weakness of anger management
    • The short term nature of the study - Ireland's investigation assessed after 8 weeks, may not be sufficient time to realistically evaluate the effectiveness of similar programs, especially once an offender is released from the institutional setting
    • Questionable whether Ireland's study is a good indicator of how effective anger management would be in the long term
  • Anger management may be seen as a form of social control