Chapter 10: Cognitive Therapy

  Cognitive Therapy is best known and related to the theoretical structure developed by Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive Therapy takes a neutral stance on human nature, looking at human qualities only through an evolutionary perspective. Another key point is that humans create their own meaning form their experiences. The cognitive model, one of the key constructs, possesses three levels: the automatic/preconscious, which are our survival thoughts and largely out of awareness, the conscious is our normal thinking, and the metaconscious or our ability to think about our thinking process. Schemas organize received information like ideas and experiences thus shaping our perceptions on this information. A schema is also a grouping of expectations, images and perceptions or automatic thoughts, associated with certain concepts. Whether these automatic thoughts and schemas are good or bad is another matter.
   In my future career the way these schemas are arranged by the students experiences may need further guidance. Stereotypes and implicit biases will certainly fall into there own schema. Dependent of these biases and certainly with all of the stereotypes these perceptions could easily cause harm to others. By guiding students into awareness of their biases they may begin to realize harmful effects and look towards reorganization of schemas. New experiences can be assessed in a new light.