Application of Cognitive Restructuring in a Brief Psychotherapy Process Based on Beck’s Cognitive Model, in a Client with Anxiety Disorder Related to the Role of Primary Caregiver of a Person with Schizophrenia

Abstract

The present article shows the application of Beck’s cognitive therapy by means of cognitive restructuring in the case of a twenty-six- year-old patient with an anxiety disorder related to the role of being the main caregiver of a schizophrenic sibling. A brief therapy process, consisting of ten sessions, was carried out with the aim of reducing the obsessive thoughts related to the responsibility of caring for her sibling and in this way being able to focus on her self-care. To achieve this goal, the strategies used include psychoeducation, cognitive restructuring, self-registration, and a variety of tasks to practice at home what she learned in therapy. At the end of the Beck’s cognitive psychotherapy process, through the quantitative and qualitative results (LSB-50, changes in the results of the benchmarked mood states and the patient’s verbal report), it was concluded that the psychotherapeutic approach produced the expected improvement results in terms of the patient’s self-regulation of anxiety levels. As a result, her main clinical symptoms decreased, which had an impact on her quality of life when she started to give importance to her self-care without feelings of guilt.