Homework Assignments in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Abstract

Homeworks have been considered as an important aspect of cognitive behavioral therapy. Generally aimed to get and give information with homework in the initial sessions while it is aimed to transfer into everyday life of the skills and techniques which were taught in therapy session in the further sessions. Activity planning, self-monitoring, cognition and behavior rating scales, and exposure can be shown among commonly used homeworks. Many studies indicated that patients who adapt and regularly doing their homework showed more improvement than patients who don't. In addition, studies indicated that homework is an important factor for the effectiveness of therapy and has a positive impact on the results of treatment. For this reason, it is important that therapists who working with the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy to know details related to application of homeworks and to application the techniques in right time and in the correct way. Aim of this review is to describe homeworks which are particularly used in the cognitive behavioral therapy frame, explain implementation of the processes and commonly used homeworks types. Also describes factors which influencing compliance against homework, finally examined the effectiveness of homework in the process of cognitive behavioral therapy in this article. [Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2015; 7(3.000): 280-288]

Keywords

• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• homework
• activity planning