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Cognitive therapy is a form of psychotherapy which aims to help people to change their *assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, cognitive biases, cognitive style, expectations, perceptions and thinking etc on the basis that these psychological and cognitive elements may cause, or maintain psychological problems and mental disorders. By changing erroneous patterns of thinking,and distorted perceptions of 'reality' it is assumed that people's behavior, thoughts and feelingswill become more appropriately adapted to their situation and they will enjoy improved mental health.

So, for example, a tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts can be associate with depression. By encouraging people to spend less time thinking in this way, and to adopt more positive beliefs about the world findings suggest their mood can be improved.

The distinction between cognitive therapy and cognitive behavior therapy is one of emphasis. In the later there is a more direct emphasis on behavior as a more objective measurable criteria for measuring change. Although in practice there is a large degree of overlap between the approaches.

Cognitive rehabilitation is the application of cognitive principles to help people therapeutically to overcome cognitive deficits due to brain damage, aging etc

Focus of cognitive therapy[]

The focus of cognitive therapy is on addressing the ssues that arise from:

Cognitive therapy approaches[]

There are a large number of therapy approaches that may come into this category. They include:

Particular techniques[]

Main article: Cognitive interventions

Sometimes it is hard to draw a distinction between a mature psychotherapy and particular techniques which may be used in a variety of approaches.The later include:

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