The Cognitive Model
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Hello everyone and happy March! My name is Mark Nania and I am an intern here at Beacon of Hope. I’m currently getting a master’s in counseling from Western Michigan University. I work primarily from a cognitive behavioral therapy lens. A therapeutic modality which looks at how thoughts, behaviors, and emotions influence each other while considering individual life experiences, beliefs, and cultures. For the month of March, I wanted to share with everyone one of the tools that I use in session with my clients. This tool is referred to as the cognitive model. There are four parts to the cognitive model: the inciting incident (something happens), which leads to a thought, then an emotion, and, finally, the behavior. So, it looks like this:
Now, let’s examine what this looks like in practice. For our inciting incident, let’s say you hear dogs barking across the street frequently. Your initial thought may be, “I wish they would be quiet”. This may lead to you feeling irritated with the constant barking. Your actions as a result of feeling irritated may be complaining to your coworkers.
However, you soon realize that there is not anything that you can do about the barking and you decide to apply the cognitive model. So, a new thought may be “those dogs are very communicative and sociable” this may lead to you feeling joy because the dogs are expressing themselves. The feeling of joy may mean that every time you hear the dogs bark, you smile to yourself and go about your day.
The cognitive model is all about looking at things in new ways. By adjusting our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, we can choose where to spend our energy and learn to accept that some things are beyond our control. (Accepting what we cannot control, even if we don’t like it, is referred to as radical acceptance in certain forms of CBT). Changes can occur at any level. For example, you may still feel irritated with the barking but rather than complaining, this may motivate you figure out ways to be more based on the present moment, so you are less distracted by the barking. Can you think of ways that you can apply the cognitive model to your life?
Mark Nania
Counseling Intern
