ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of the present model for the treatment of emotional disorders. Then the chapter discusses new implications for treatment, with an emphasis on the augmentation of existing schema-based cognitive therapy. The theories fail to specify in detail the different aspects of the cognitive architecture which may contribute to emotional problems. An analysis of this type is possible with the SREF model and it leads to new predictions concerning what should be done in treatment. In addition, this model, unlike other cognitive models, offers guidelines concerned with how cognitive change may be best achieved. The chapter discusses popular exposure-based behavioural and cognitive treatments and consider how their effects may be interpreted in terms of the present SREF model. Behavioural approaches to emotional disorders, particularly anxiety states, have used variations of exposure-based techniques. One of the most common fear-reduction techniques, systematic desensitisation is historically based on the principle of reciprocal inhibition.
