Posts
What is the Cognitive Development?
Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process and abilities. In Piaget’s view, early cognitive development involves processes based upon actions and later progresses into changes in mental operations.Cognitive theory is concerned with the development of a person's thought processes. It also looks at how these thought processes influence how we understand and interact with the world. The foremost cognitive thinker was Jean Piaget, who proposed an idea that seems obvious now, but helped revolutionize how we think about child development: Children think differently than adults. Piaget then proposed a theory of cognitive development to account for the steps and sequence of children's intellectual development.Piaget divided schemes that children use to understand the world through four main stages, roughly correlated with and becoming increasingly sophisticated with age:
* Sensorimotor stage (years 0-2)
* Preoperational stage (years 2-7)
* Concrete operational stage (years 7-11)
* Formal operational stage (years 11-adulthood
Cognitive therapy seeks to help the client overcome difficulties by identifying and changing dysfunctional thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. This involves helping clients developing skills for modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors. Treatment is based on collaboration between client and therapist and on testing beliefs. Therapy may consist of testing the assumptions which one makes and identifying how certain of one's usually-unquestioned thoughts are distorted, unrealistic and unhelpful. Once those thoughts have been challenged, one's feelings about the subject matter of those thoughts are easier subject to change. Beck initially focused on depression and developed a list of errors in thinking that he proposed could maintain depression, including arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, over-generalization, and magnification (of negatives) and minimization (of positives).
A simple example may illustrate the principle of how Cognitive therapy works: Having made a mistake at work, a person may believe, I'm useless and can't do anything right at work. Strongly believing this, in turn, tends to worsen his mood. The problem may be worsened further if the individual reacts by avoiding activities and then behaviorally confirming his negative belief to himself. As a result, an adaptive response and further constructive consequence becomes unlikely, which reinforces the original belief of being useless. In therapy, the latter example could be identified as a self-fulfilling prophecy or problem cycle, and the efforts of the therapist and client would be directed at working together to change it. This is done by addressing the way the client thinks and behaves in response to similar situations and by developing more flexible ways to think and respond, including reducing the avoidance of activities. If, as a result, the client escapes the negative thought patterns and dysfunctional behaviors, the feelings of depression may, over time, be relieved. The client may then become more active, succeed and respond more adaptively more often, and further reduce or cope with his negative feelings. Depressed people acquire a negative schema of the world in childhood and adolescence; children and adolescents who suffer from depression acquire this negative schema earlier. Depressed people acquire such schemas through a loss of a parent, rejection by peers, criticism from teachers or parents, the depressive attitude of a parent and other negative events. When the person with such schemas encounters a situation that resembles in some way, even remotely, the conditions in which the original schema was learned, the negative schemas of the person are activated.
Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. This usually includes increasing individual sense of well-being and reducing subjective discomforting experience. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change and that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family). Psychotherapy may be performed by practitioners with a number of different qualifications, including psychologists, marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers, counselors, psychiatric nurses, music therapists, and psychiatrists.
Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.
Treatment ;-
* Medication – Mood-stabilizing medications are almost always continued even when the symptoms of mania or depression are under control. When medication is continued on a long-term basis, it can reduce the frequency and severity of mood episodes, and even prevent them entirely. If you’ve had two or more manic or depressive episodes, it is recommended that you stay on mood stabilizers indefinitely.
* Psychotherapy – Therapy during the maintenance phase of treatment is essential for dealing with disorder and the problems it has caused in the life. Working with a therapist, one can learn how to cope with difficult or uncomfortable feelings, repair their relationships, manage stress, and regulate their mood.
* Education – Managing symptoms and preventing complications begins with a thorough knowledge of your illness. Education is a key component of treatment. The more you and your loved ones know about cognitive disorder, the more effective you’ll be at avoiding problems and dealing with setbacks.
* Support – Living with cognitive disorder can be challenging, and having a solid support system in place can make all the difference in your outlook and motivation. Participating in a support group gives you the opportunity to share your experiences and learn from others who know what you’re going through.
God bless and keep smiling!
Posted byIrum Khan
Excellent article. We use cognitive therapy in patients with Insomnia, primary or co morbid type;and with good success. This does take time and effort on both the physician's and patient's part.
Keep spreading joy and I am sure good work.