Cbt Vs Psychodynamic Theory

If Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Psychodynamic Therapy are to be compared, a good place to begin is at the historical roots of CBT. CBTs roots lie in Behaviour Therapy (BT) (Wolpe, 1958) which arose as a "reaction against the Freudian psychodynamic paradigm that had dominated psychotherapy from the nineteenth century onwards" (Westbrook et al, 2011). In the 1950's scientific psychology brought Freudian psychoanalysis into question on the grounds that there was a lack of empirical evidence existing to support its effectiveness or indeed its theory (Eysenck, 1952). BT believed that the activity of the mind was not directly observable and therefore could not be studied scientifically but that in contrast, the response to stimuli was

As Bateman et al describe it, the behaviourist studies the patient 'from the outside' in order to manipulate "deviant or maladaptive behaviour toward some agreed goal or norm", while the psychodynamic therapist approaches the patient 'from the inside', in order to "help him to understand and identify what is happening in his inner world" (Bateman et al, 2000). Of course CBT as we know it today also incorporates a cognitive element, which acknowledges that mental processes (which are unseen) form such an obvious part of life, that it would be absurd for psychology to not deal with it (Westbrook et al,

The precise role of the therapeutic relationship within the actual therapy session is viewed quite differently in the two modalities. Within psychodynamic therapy the therapeutic relationship is seen as having the potential in itself to be used as a tool to assist in the clients therapy. Brown and Pedder (2000) describe our natural tendency to respond to new relationships by transferring feelings or attitudes developed in similar experiences in the past. More specifically, they go on to say, in a psychotherapeutic relationship context, the patient might experience feelings towards the therapist as if he were an important person from their past. This phenomena is referred to as transference. Greenson (1967) defines it as "the experience of feelings, drives, attitudes, fantasies and defences toward a person in the present, which do not befit that person but are a repetition of reactions originating in regard to significant persons of early childhood, unconsciously displaced onto figures in the present." This was first seen by Freud as an obstacle to treatment, but was later seen by him as a tool for investigating the forgotten and repressed past (Brown and Pedder, 2000). In psychodynamic therapy today transference is viewed as a "primary source of understanding and therapeutic change" (Gabbard,