ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we consider in detail the implications of the present model for the treatment of emotional disorders. In the first section, we offer an account of the efficacy of existing treatments in terms of the new model, because the mechanisms of change specified by the current model are different from the mechanisms postulated by other theories. In the second section, new implications for treatment are discussed, with an emphasis on the augmentation of existing schema-based cognitive therapy. While many of the treatment implications are consistent with existing cognitive therapy, several new possibilities are implied by the present model. In particular, existing cognitive theories offer no more than a basic principle for therapy: namely, modifying patients’ belief in dysfunctional appraisals and assumptions and generating replacement knowledge. This approach tends to focus on modifying the content of cognition (declarative knowledge), but it is likely that procedural knowledge is at least as important in dysfunction. 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.
