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CENT Counselling: How to apply Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) in counselling and self-help. By Dr Jim Byrne ~~~
It is the second, briefer, more popular of two e-books on Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT), by Dr Jim Byrne. This book was designed to answer the most common questions asked by counsellors, psychologists, psychotherapists, counselling and therapy students, counselling and therapy clients, and self-help enthusiasts, about the nature of CENT: how to learn it; and how to apply it in practice, to individual counselling, couple's therapy, and self management. The main aim is to demonstrate CENT counselling in practice; and in the process you will learn something about how to integrate and apply CBT/REBT, Transactional Analysis (TA), Attachment Theory, Object Relations and Zen philosophy and Moral philosophy. Most of the material in this book was specially written for this edition, and was not included in any of the published CENT papers, or in the first e-book on CENT (although there are, inevitably, some areas of overlap). ~~~
~~~ To purchase a copy of this book, please go to one of the following outlets:
~~~ +++ CENT Counselling: How to apply Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) in counselling and self-help. By Dr Jim Byrne + Hebden Bridge: The Institute for CENT. ~~~ CONTENTS Summary 1. What is CENT? 2. The core beliefs of CENT philosophy 3. The main models used in CENT 4. The Six Windows Model of CENT 5. The main similarities and differences between CENT and: (a) Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) (b) Traditional Narrative Therapy (c) Zen therapy and Buddhist philosophy (d) Transactional Analysis (TA) (e) Attachment theory and neo-Freudian psychoanalysis 6. How is individual counselling conducted in CENT? 7. How is CENT couples therapy conducted? 8. CENT and self management. 9. How does CENT integrate attachment theory, moral philosophy, cognitive science and Transactional Analysis to produce a new model of the ‘social self'? 10. Conclusion References Appendix A: Frame theory Footnotes ~~~  ~~~ To purchase a copy of this book, please go to one of the following outlets:
~~~ Summary Chapter 1 begins with a basic description of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). This if followed by a brief outline of basic theory of CENT. The chapter then goes on to explore the models that were integrated to produce Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). CENT sees humans as essentially story tellers, to ourselves and others, and storytellers who live in a world of narratives and scripts, which include reasonable and unreasonable elements, logical and illogical elements, and defensible and indefensible elements. Humans often tend to push away (or repress) unpleasant experiences, to fail to process them, and then to become the (unconscious) victims of those repressed, undigested experiences. CENT also sees adult relationships as being the acting out of childhood experiences with parents and siblings, because some part of those earlier relationships have not been properly digested and completed. Furthermore, there are significant disruptions that can occur at various stages in the early childhood experience of the individual which can produce specific forms of relationship dysfunction in later life. In a broader sense than that outlined above, CENT was developed by this author over many years of study and application,
in private practice with more than 550 clients. Here are just two of the key features of CENT: Chapter 2 outlines eleven such core beliefs of CENT philosophy. CENT uses a number of different models to structure counselling and therapy sessions. There are at least four used for relatively cognitive (or cooler, more surface level) work; and several others used for deeper, more emotive (or historical, and non-conscious) work - (although all counselling and therapy work involves cognitive-emotive processing). The most central cognitive models used include the RCFP model and the EFR model, both of which were developed within CENT. The RCFP model is structured like this: # R = Rapport. Build rapport with the client as a basis for a strong therapeutic alliance. # C = Contract. Find out what the client wants to work on, as a contractual undertaking. # F = Focus. Focus in on an area of work that will assist in the pursuit of the client's goals. # P = Process. Process the client's communications through one of the various models available, such as the A>B>C model; the Egan model; etc. The EFR model is the core model of CENT, alongside the 6 Windows Model. The EFR model is structured like this: # E = Event. What happened in the client's life, about which they are disturbed. # F = Framing. How did the client frame this experience? (They normally will not know this, as it is mainly non-conscious). # R = Response. How did the client respond to their Framing (F) of the Event (E)? What emotion did they feel? How did they act? We also use: the A>B>C model from REBT; the Six Windows Model[1], also from CENT; and several other models. (We originally used the APET model from the Human Givens tradition, but found in practice that it does not add anything significant, therapeutically, that is not available from the EFR model). According to CENT theory, we do not see with our eyes so much as with our brains. Eyes are part of the machinery of perception, but the decisions about ‘what it is' that we see are not made by our eyes. Those decisions are made by our ‘stored experiences' driving our ‘judgements'. We do not see ‘external events' so much with our eyes then as we see them through ‘frames of reference and interpretation' which were created in the past, and which we now implement as habit-based stimulus-response pairings. Or we could call these responses ‘pattern matching' processes. "I've seen this stimulus (or ‘external event') before. This (particular interpretation) is the sense I made of it last time. So that is how I will relate to it this time". The Windows Model is the core therapeutic model of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). It is predicated on ‘frame theory', which suggests that all of our perceptions are interpretative, and that our interpretations are driven by habit-based ‘framings' of incoming stimuli, through our senses. The ‘frames' that we use to interpret incoming stimuli are nested sets of inferences[2], which are derived from past experience. Depending upon the negativity or positivity of the frame through which you are perceiving an incoming stimulus, you will produce a correspondingly negative or positive emotional/behavioural response. The Six Windows Model provides six empowering frames through which to view a difficult situation, to allow the client to gain mastery over their problem.  The insights from frame theory underpin the EFR model of CENT, which is the core model used to structure the client's disturbances. Chapter 5 explores some of the main similarities and differences between CENT and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), traditional Narrative Therapy, Zen therapy, Transactional Analysis (TA), and Attachment theory and Object Relations theory.
Chapter 6 describes how individual counselling is conducted in CENT, and Chapter 7 describes the processes used in couples therapy.
Chapter 8 looks at how CENT theory is used in self management, Including: diet, meditation, exercise, self talk, supplementation, and so on. The main emphasis is on managing health, happiness, relationships, and career/work. Chapter 9 briefly outlines the evolution of the CENT model of the individual client in counselling and therapy. This process began with the simple ABC model of REBT, which is described in Chapter 3, section (ii) above, and in Chapter 5, section (v). The next stage was the emergence of the complex A>B>C model from my review of Albert Ellis's writings from 1958 and 1962 , and my contrasting of Ellis's views against those of Bond and Dryden (1996) . I then moved on to look at the ways in which the A>B>C model can be linked back to the id-ego-superego model created by Sigmund Freud . Then I added in some ideas from cognitive science , Transactional Analysis, Attachment theory and Object Relations theory . And I explored how to understand the role and nature of the ‘adaptive unconscious', or the non-conscious functioning of the individual human being. ~~~ To purchase a copy of this book, please go to one of the following outlets:
~~~ Chapter 1: What is CENT? 1.1: Overview This chapter begins with a basic description of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). This if followed by a brief outline of the basic theory of CENT. It then goes on to explore the models that were integrated to produce Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). CENT sees humans as essentially story tellers, to ourselves and others, and storytellers who live in a world of narratives and scripts, which include reasonable and unreasonable elements, logical and illogical elements, and defensible and indefensible elements. Humans often tend to push away (or repress) unpleasant experiences, to fail to process them, and to then become the (unconscious) victims of those repressed, undigested experiences. CENT also sees adult relationships as being the acting out of childhood experiences with parents and siblings, because some part of those earlier relationships have not been properly digested and completed. Furthermore, there are significant disruptions that can occur at various stages in the early childhood experience of the individual which can produce specific forms of relationship dysfunction in later life. The various models used in CENT are then outlined, from the ABC model of REBT; the EFR model and the Six Windows model created within CENT; the Skilled Helper model; and so on. ~~~
~~~ To purchase a copy of this book, please go to one of the following outlets:
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[1] The Six Windows Model is described and applied in Chapter 4 below. [2]According to the Paperback Oxford English Dictionary (Soanes, 2002), an inference is a "conclusion based on evidence". More generally, an inference could be simply "a conclusion", however derived. ... ~~~
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This is a popular introduction to the theory and practice of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT), which is an integrative
new philosophy of life, and a psychological system of counselling and psychotherapy.
