You will prepare and submit a term paper on Social Work Approaches. Your paper should be a minimum of 2000 words in length.

You will prepare and submit a term paper on Social Work Approaches. Your paper should be a minimum of 2000 words in length. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a form of psychotherapy procedure which is used to treat depression. The main focus of this therapy is on current issues and symptoms rather than on the past history of the patient. Significantly, this type of therapy concentrates on how the individual thinks and behaves at present rather than in the patient’s early childhood experiences that could have brought about the typical behavior. The approach entails weekly therapy sessions that are coupled with daily practice exercises designed to help patients apply the cognitive behavioral therapy skills which they have learned into their own personal settings or environment. Treatment is short and does not last longer than 16 weeks or 4 months (University of Michigan \depression Centre, 2006).

Cognitive-behavioral therapy employs three (3) essential features, which are (University of Michigan Depression Centre, 2006): 1) Cognitive restructuring, 2) behavioral activation, and 3) enhancing problem-solving skills. Cognitive restructuring focuses on the identification of the maladaptive or erroneous thoughts that makes the patient feel depressed. Usually, the depression is about themselves, their environment and their future. Maladaptive thoughts about themselves include feelings of being worthless or stupid because they cannot get jobs or because they commit mistakes – which in reality are considered petty or small problems. In connection with this, they tend to lose interest and cut back on their customary activities, which an ordinary and normal individual get pleasure from as part of his or her daily existence. Thus, the person's concern spends more idle time to focus on distorted thoughts that would eventually pave way for negative emotions.

In relation to the foregoing, home settings and the environment, in general, makes a person feel depressed because he or she perceives being a social outcast. This is why social interactions with the family and with the community become deficient and limited.