Cognitive Behaviour Therapies and their implications for applied educational psychology practice

This paper critically considers the growing interest in the use of Cognitive Behaviour Therapies to support children and young people presenting with a wide range of social-emotional difficulties. This focus has emerged since the prevalence of such difficulties in children and young people has increased over the past four decades, and the application of such approaches is no longer seen as being the sole preserve of specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), counsellors or therapists. To develop a critical understanding of the principles and core components of Cognitive Behaviour Therapies, two prominent approaches are reviewed. These are Ellis's Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), and Beck's Cognitive Therapy (CT). The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the ways in which Educational Pychologists can directly and/or indirectly support the delivery of Cognitive Behaviour Therapies in their work.