WHAT
IS 'CENT'?
by Jim Byrne, DCouns
Copyright (c) 2009, Jim Byrne
Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) is a system of counselling, therapy
and coaching which integrates Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), Zen Buddhist philosophy,
moral philosophy, Object Relations theory, and several other cognitive, narrative and psychodynamic therapies.
One
of the core models used in CENT is the A>B>C model of REBT, which works like this:
(A) Something - called the Activating Event - happens to thwart the client's
goal-directed activities (or 'G'). This 'noxious Activating event' is called 'the A'. (Example: You are made redundant, and
have problems getting a new job).
(B) The 'B' originally meant 'Belief', and the client is thought to trigger a
particular belief, either 'rational' or 'irrational', upon encountering 'the A'. (Using the example above, the client might
tell themselves: "I should not have been made redundant; it's awful that this has happened;
and this proves what a worthless louse I am!") In other words, the client 'tells themselves', or 'signals
themselves', something about 'the A', or noxious stimulus. And that piece of 'self talk', or 'languaging/imaging', or 'narrative
interpretation', is either overly-distressing or reasonably-arousing.
(C) The client then feels either reasonably
aroused about 'the A' - Activating event, or stimulus - or overly-upset.
CENT therapists use a variation on that model, called the EFR model, as follows:
E = Event or fixation. What happened, or what are you focussing upon?
F = Framing. What kind of ‘frame' or ‘lens' are you looking through, in order to interpret
this event, or to frame what are you are fixated upon?
R = Response.
What is the emotional and behavioural response generated by your body-mind?
Then we have the Debating/Disputing step in REBT:
(D) The aim of REBT therapy is to help
the client to Debate and Dispute (D) their 'irrational beliefs', or unhelpful narratives;
and to arrive at point 'E': a New Effective Philosophy, or a more empowering 'story' or 'narrative'.
(E) The new
effective philosophy, or 'E' has to be reviewed many times to get it into long-term memory, where it guides the tacit responses
of the client when they meet that particular frustrating 'A' - or Activating stimulus - on a future occasion.
In CENT, Disputing is replaced by the frame challenging step (FC):
FC = Frame challenging. How many different ways can you think of to frame the E (or
event or fixation that is troubling you)? If only one, then you really don't know how your mind works. Let's use
the Windows Model to show you that there are at least five, and possibly 55 different ways to look at what happened to you. Then
we will consider which of those ways of looking at your situation is going to serve you best, and which you need to dump.
Once you have changed the F that is distressing you, you will get a new (emotional and behavioural) outcome
at point R in the CENT model.
CENT was developed by Dr Jim Byrne over many years of study and application, in private practice with more than 530
clients. Here are some of the key features of CENT:
Firstly,
it takes into account that we are bodies as well as minds, and so diet, exercise, sleep, relaxation/meditation, drugs and
other physical inputs and stimuli are seen as important factors in determining the emotional state of the individual client.
Secondly, it starts from the assumption that we are primarily
social animals, and not solitary individuals. We are social to our very roots, especially from the moment of parturition,
when we are handed into the arms of our mothers. Everything that happens from that point onwards - and also including the
original birth trauma - is significant for the development of the so-called 'individual' (who is really an amalgam of significant
other 'individuals' with whom we are related from birth onwards, and who we 'internalize' as 'models').
Thirdly, the CENT model represents the new born baby as containing two potentials:
to develop pro-social and caring attitudes; and to develop anti-social and egotistical attitudes. Part of the process of socialization
is to ensure that the new person mainly develops their 'good side' (or what the Native American Cherokee people called the
'good wolf') through the moral teachings of their parents, teachers and others; and that their 'bad wolf' is constrained and
contained. (It cannot ever be totally or permanently eliminated. We each contain the capacity for significant levels of 'evil'
to the ends of our days!) But the happy functioning of social animals depends upon the extent to which we develop our pro-social,
moral virtues, and resist our anti-social, immoral or amoral vices. Some clients are clearly operating mainly from 'good wolf'
and some are significantly operating from 'bad wolf'. That latter client group needs coaching in moral philosophy; and encouragement
to operate mainly from 'good wolf'.
Fourth, CENT sees humans
as primary non-conscious beings, who operate tacitly, automatically, from layers of cumulative, interpretative experience,
stored in the form of schemas and stories, in long-term memory, and permanently beyond direct conscious inspection. About
95% of all of our daily actions are executed non-consciously and automatically. So change is not easy; delusion is our normal
state (i.e. our perceptions of ourselves, others and the world are false to facts); and we project our own 'stories' onto
our environments, and judge them accordingly. To wake up to a more accurate understanding of life - with our adult-functioning
in the driving seat - is not easy, but it is possible. Because of our non-consciousness, it may often be more realistic to
use the APET model, from the Human Givens school of thought, rather than the A>B>C model; as follows:
A = Activating event (as before): Something frustrating, challenging
or noxious in some way, happens to the client.
P
= Pattern. Our 'organism as a whole' recognizes this activating event, because it can be assimilated to an existing 'schema'
(or recognizable pattern) in long-term memory.
E
= Our organism as a whole then 'outputs' a standard, habitual, emotional response to this stimulus (at 'A' above).
T = Thoughts. Thinking follows on from consciously registering
the fact that the emotional response has already occurred.
And in CENT, the next element is:
NI =
Narrative inquiry: What is going on 'in the basement' of your (the client's) mind? What is the story that produced this (E)
response to this particular 'A' (or activating stimulus)? What is the narrative that is implied by this reaction? How helpful,
logical or reasonable is this implicit narrative? What could the client change in the implicit narrative, or what more empowering
narrative could they develop instead of the problematical one?
Fifth, We mainly operate from one of three so-called 'ego states', or 'ways of
being' (as described in Transactional Analysis [TA]). These are:
(P) Parent ego state, when we think, feel and behave just like some parent figure from our past experience;
(A) Adult, which is the logical, reasonably cool and rational,
computing part of the brain-mind. And:
(C) Child
ego state, which is characterized by our thinking, feeling and behaving just like we once did as a young child.
Sixth, we seem to be story tellers in a world of stories. (Language is the sea
in which we swim, unknowingly; as fish swim in water without ever 'spotting' the water). And so our neurotic reactions tend
to be outgrowths of old, illogical, unreasonable and unhelpful narratives and stories, scripts, schemas, beliefs and attitudes.
Seventh, it may be that we each have a vulnerability towards
angering, panicking or depressing ourselves when we are stressed by external events or objects; and CENT tries to help the
client to work on curing those vulnerabilities, by changing elements of their beliefs, attitudes, schemas and stories. Significant
stories include: The story of origin, including birth and birth-family; The story of personal identity; The story of relationship;
Stories of transitions; The story of wealth/success/poverty/failure; The story of present problems; The connections between
the story of origin, the story of relationships, and the story of present problems; and so on.
Eighth, our adult relationships (such as marriage and living together) are strongly coloured, shaped and driven by
the original drama between baby, mum and dad. We repeatedly re-enact our family drama, until we work on it and resolve it.
We have to 'complete' our relationships with our parents before we can grow up and move on. And completing those relationships
means allowing them to be, exactly as they were - accepting them, and getting over our judgemental attitudes about our parents,
who were just 'blokes and birds doing their (highly imperfect) jobs'.
Ninth, we can re-frame our experiences, so that they no longer seem so distressing or difficult. I have developed
a model for this purpose, called the 'Mind Hut' model, or the 'Four Windows' model, which can be reviewed here.
Tenth, from the object relations school, CENT takes the view
that the first three phases of development of childhood can be disrupted, between birth and about the age of six years - or
the first four subphases from birth to age three - resulting in specific forms of relationship dysfunction in later life.
The solution to these problems tend to include a mixture of 'being with' the client; 'holding' the relationship; helping them
to make conscious and then process their unexperienced or resisted emotions; and providing analysis and models as cognitive-emotive
ways forward.
~~~
POSTSCRIPT
That is a brief flavour of CENT.
We deal with your emotions. We look at the connection between your thinking and your emotions; your experience and
your emotions; your meanings and your emotions; your emotions and behaviours; and the stories within which you live your life.
We encourage you to change your self talk; your habitual behaviours; and to work on your bodily health and the story of your
life. We try to provide the best possible analysis of the potential reasons, in the basement of your mind, for your current
dysfunctional thoughts-feelings-behaviours.
~~~
Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2009, ABC Coaching Publications
To reference this paper in a publication, please use the following citation:
Byrne, J. (2009b) What is cognitive emotive narrative therapy (CENT)? CENT Paper No.2. Hebden Bridge:
The Institute for CENT Studies.
~~~
Dr Jim Byrne
April 2009
Email Jim Byrne at ABC Coaching.
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PS: If you would like a more general introduction to the concept of 'counselling' as such, then please take a look
at this blog.
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