The use of homework assignments is rooted in cognitive therapy’s assumption that people learn through doing. With new learning comes new understandings; with new understandings come new possibilities. This assumption is true whether we are speaking of clients immobilized by the symptoms of depression, the gamut of anxiety disorders, personality disorders, or any other form of mental disorder. If the human mind is involved in the ‘problem’ then cognitive therapy asserts that an ‘upgrade of thought’ yields a better situation.

While most of us are familiar with many excellent collections of prepared homework assignments (here are some of my favorites), better yet are assignments that are developed in collaboration with the client. For example, I encourage all of my clients to monitor their moods (English), not all connect with a standard mood monitoring form. So we figure out what works: a couple of clients use phone apps; one prefers the use of a diary. Still others email me running narratives of their emotional ups and downs (we’ll leave the issue of email for another time). More important than the details, it’s the collaboration around getting cognitive therapy into their lives that helps them. In coming posts I’ll show some of the assignments that I’ve put together with my clients to meet their needs. 

My latest book, Take My Hand A Guide To Jewish Mindfulness is now available in book stores. Warm, simple, real, and friendly Take My Hand will bring the ideas of mindfulness down to Earth. For those in Jerusalem, Take My Hand can be found at Havruta and at other book stores specializing in English Judaica. For those who would like to purchase the book directly, send me an email or call me. 

Blessings and blessings to all!

After a wonderful Pesach hiatus, it’s time to get back to work! 

Looking over my previous posts, it seems that many are devoted, at least indirectly, to the relationship between the cognitive therapist and the client. That relationship is one characterized by mutual discovery: as cognitive therapists we strive to enter the matrix of the client’s thoughts, to see the world as he sees it, and then to invite him to reconstruct his ideas. In new ideas lay the potential for new ways of thinking, living, and relating. 

Cognitive therapy however strives to extend the therapeutic relationship into the client’s life. This is primarily done through homework assignments and skills building. In the coming posts, we’ll consider some of these assignments and skills. Many of them will be drawn from the exciting world of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), as well as the wonderful writings of one of the most prolific exponents of cognitive therapy, Mathew McKay. 

A few nights ago, we began our seder with a question: why is this night different than all other nights?

It’s fascinating to observe that out of all the questions that the seder could have begun with, the Rabbis saw fit to begin with a question about deviations. After all, ‘mah nishtana’ is a question that flows from an observation of difference from a norm.

Perhaps the Rabbis, intent on designing a seder centered around educating our children, understood that pattern recognition is one of the earliest cognitive skills evident in the developing child. Pattern recognition has been observed in infants as young as four months (although if you ask me, my children had their mother and father figured out from the get go). For the Rabbis, this pattern recognition could be leveraged for new learnings;  by tickling a child’s sense of order, he or she child will perk up and learn new ideas.

For me however, as a cognitive therapist who spends his days and nights helping people find their ways out their own personal Egypt, ‘mah nishtana’ is a powerful tool. Our clients are too often so numb to the misery that they fail to notice how it affects them and how to get out of it. When we start questioning the ‘normal’, we jar our clients to begin thinking again about their lives and the stories which have imprisoned them in it. 

And that’s the first step towards freedom.

Chag Samayach to all!