ABSTRACT
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is the use of higher mental or cognitive processes to uncover, identify, and access patterns and modes of thinking and perceiving. Once these processes are uncovered, a therapist can help clients to shed light on the detrimental aspects of these patterns. Behavioral therapy, the first wave of the cognitive behavioral revolution in psychotherapy, was a break from traditional psychoanalytic modes of understanding human behavior. Psychologists working early in the 20th century were troubled by the lack of objective data supporting widely held psychological principles of psychoanalysis. Trying to grasp how human behavior differs from that of the rest of the animal world, psychologists realized that our capacity to think, ponder, and use language and mental images greatly affected the learning process. Self-efficacy is an outcome of both social learning theory and CBT. Learning new coping strategies improves self-efficacy and is at the root of coping skills therapies.
