The Benefits Of Seeing A Cognitive Psychologist
Many types of psychologists can help you better yourself and resolve any problems you may be facing. In this post, we will discuss the benefits of psychology therapy upon seeing a cognitive psychologist. What do they do? How can they help you?
What Is A Cognitive Psychologist?
A cognitive psychologist is someone who studies the mind and how we think. In the past few centuries, we've made progress in discovering how the mind works, but there are still many mysteries that we don't know about. There are plenty of times when you don't know someone's rationale behind what they do. You may not even know your rationale. Why can't your mind remember where you left your keys but remembers the lyrics from this song you listened to 10 years ago? Why do you make the decisions you make?
Besides helping you to understand your mind better, cognitive psychology is used to treat people. Those who have memory problems, brain injuries, or have other disorders that affect how one can think may benefit from cognitive psychology. One such example is problems with attention. Cognitive psychologists know why the brain focuses on certain objects. A cognitive psychologist can help you figure out how you can focus your attention on the things that can benefit you.
Cognitive psychologists tend to be researchers, being contracted by the government or universities to study the mind and do research. However, there is a cognitive psychologist who serves the public and helps clients improve their memory. They have their practices or may work in hospitals or mental health clinics.
Who Can Benefit From Seeing A Cognitive Psychologist?
A cognitive psychologist helps those who want to improve their memory or focus or help those who have brain injuries that may prevent them from functioning as fully as they want to. You can improve your overall mental health and live a more productive life.
Here are some services they can help you with.
Degenerative Brain Diseases
Dementia, such as Alzheimer's, can cause the brain to forget people, cognitive functions and require the patient to be in someone's care at all times. While there is no cure or way to halt the prognosis, cognitive therapy can slow down the prognosis and allow the patient to live a longer, more independent life. A psychologist may use memory improvement techniques to help those with dementia remember people.
Brain Injury
A brain injury can cause cognitive problems. Some brain injuries can heal with time, but others can cause permanent damage. Brain injuries usually come in blunt trauma, or you could be born with a certain part of your brain not fully developed. Someone who has a brain injury and is suffering from cognitive problems can benefit from seeing a psychologist. A cognitive psychologist can work around the injury and let the patient live a healthier life.
For Mental Health Problems
There are many mental health issues that cognitive therapy can help treat. For example, negative thoughts can make depression and anxiety worse. You may think negative thoughts as opposed to positive, motivational thoughts. Some forms of therapy are designed to make you think more positively.
Also, depression can affect your memory and focus. A cognitive psychologist can help you improve in those factors as well.
Sensory Issues
There are perceptual or sensory issues that can affect you and make you experience the world around you differently. This can be due to trauma, disease, or another factor. A cognitive psychologist can teach you to improve your sensory issues and allow you to return to an easier life.
Learning Disabilities
Some people have problems learning. This may be due to the inability to recall information or the ability to focus. A cognitive psychologist helps those who have learning disabilities improve their studying and find ways to learn tailored to the client's needs. Having a learning disability does not make you dumb or unable to learn. Instead, it means you learn differently than other people, and you must find the best way for you to learn.
For Those Who Want To Get Over A Phobia
Having a phobia can be a minor annoyance. If you see a spider, you may feel uncomfortable. A minor fear of heights can make you uncomfortable in certain areas, but you can manage and usually avoid these heights.
However, extreme phobias can make it difficult to live your life. For example, someone may fear going outside, which is agoraphobia. Someone with an extreme fear of people may never want to be around a crowd. Fear of flying prevents people from traveling.
Cognitive psychology helps people by teaching them ways to adjust to their phobia. From gradual exposure to positive thinking, someone can learn how to overcome the fears or cope with them whenever they're exposed to the source of their fears.
To Get You Back In A Routine
If you've been going through a change in life, have suffered from depression, or have experienced anything else that can throw you off your routine, getting you back into your routine is important. It can keep you distracted and make you less depressed or anxious. However, it can be hard to get back into a routine. This is where cognitive therapy comes in. You can change your thinking to adapt to your new routine, allowing you to ease in much better.
For Those Who Want To Improve Mentally
You don't need to have a brain injury or a mental disorder to benefit from cognitive psychology. Some clients are people who are overall well-minded but want to improve in some facets. For example, students who want to focus on their work and want to avoid distractions may seek a therapist to learn techniques to stay focused and not let the Internet distract them.
Someone a bit forgetful may want to seek a cognitive psychologist's help to improve their memory. You don't need to have a significant disorder to forget some things. A psychologist can teach you tips to recall information, which can benefit you in so many ways.
Someone may not suffer from depression, but be pessimistic. They may have confidence issues, and this can affect how they perform. A cognitive psychologist will teach the person how they can think more positively and not let doubt get in their way.
No matter your age, no matter your state of health, wanting to improve your cognition is a great idea. It can help prepare you for aging and changes in your life.
How Cognitive Psychology Has Changed The World
The field of psychology has evolved quite a bit in the past few decades. Before cognitive psychology took over, other approaches to how the mind worked, such as psychoanalysis. This was useful, but it didn't explain how people think and how these patterns can cause you mental harm. For example, if someone is always thinking negatively, a cognitive psychologist wants to know why the brain thinks that way and how the patterns can be changed.
Some of the techniques that have been born from cognitive psychology include:
Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Cognitive behavior therapy, or CBT, is a form of therapy that can treat depression, anxiety, and a slew of other mental health disorders. It works by identifying negative emotions and thoughts that are self-defeating or enable an episode and then replacing them with more positive and motivational thoughts. For example, if someone believes they are worthless, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy hopes to replace thoughts that tell them they are worthless with more positive thoughts.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Rational emotive behavior therapy, or REBT, is similar to CBT but deals with irrational beliefs and fears. Let's say you have a fear of flying. This may be due to a negative child's experience as a chi hearing about a plane crash or a bad experience on a plane. Despite planes being the safest way to travel, you are scared of them but don't avoid more dangerous cars.
REBT seeks to eliminate irrational fears by replacing them with truths.
REBT is not only good for traveling fears but other fears as well. Such as talking to people. If you want a date, you may be scared of talking to someone. The worst that could happen is that they say no, but this doesn't prevent you from being scare. REBT seeks to eliminate these thoughts and boost your confidence.
Seek Help!
If you feel like you need to improve your cognitive abilities, there is no shame in seeking a cognitive psychologist. A cognitive psychologist can help you resolve any problems you have, be it fears, anxiety, depression, or a brain injury. Through intense therapy, you can be able to improve yourself and your overall mental health.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
What is an example of cognitive psychology?
Psychology programs with cognitive processes or cognitive processing focus on things such as attention span, memory, reasoning, or other areas of the brain associated with complex mental processes. A degree in psychology can have many paths, and cognitive psychology is just one potential area of expertise. A cognitive psychologist can work in different psychology areas, such as organizational psychology, behavioral psychology, online psychology, clinical psychology, and more.
What is the average salary of a cognitive psychologist?
The average cognitive psychologist can expect to earn around $80,370 per year. With that said, the salary of somebody with a psychology degree and specializing in cognitive psychology can vary greatly depending on the psychology programs chosen. For perspective, somebody working as a cognitive psychologist in organization psychology may not make as much as someone working in developmental psychology. Additionally, online psychology organizations may not pay as much to their employees as psychologists who work on their own.
What degree is needed for cognitive psychologists?
To become a cognitive psychologist, a person must at least earn a bachelor’s degree. Their achieving a psychology degree and entering the field of psychology counseling require a master’s degree in psychology. At this point, students will be exposed to a variety of classes touching on topics such as educational psychology, social psychology, psychological counseling, behavioral psychology, organizational psychology, and more. Earning a degree in psychology requires exposure to all these types of courses. More specialized areas of the field, such as clinical psychology, may require a slightly different degree in psychology.
Who is a famous cognitive psychologist?
Ulric (Dick) Neisser is commonly thought of as the “father of cognitive psychology” and was a major advocate for ecological approaches to cognitive research. Without him, cognitive psychology in behavioral psychology, educational psychology, social psychology, and others wouldn’t exist. His work was incredibly important to the development of psychological counseling and more.
What are the 3 main cognitive theories?
Rather than three, Jean Piaget was a psychological constructivist who proposed the four main cognitive theories: Sensorimotor Stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete Operational Stage, and Formal Operation. The first of these stages within cognitive processes occurs between a person's birth and when they are two, being marked by trial and error and initial experiences. The second stage is from age two to seven and is believed to be when children develop memory. The third is from age seven to eleven when children begin to have logical thought and are no longer egocentric, as defined by cognitive psychology. Finally, the fourth stage carries on into young adulthood and involves using abstract thinking when faced with problems, rather than just relying on personal experience. These stages have been used as foundations in psychology counseling and beyond.
What is the main focus of cognitive psychology?
In short, the main focus of a person with a degree in psychology specializing in cognitive psychology is to focus on how people think. The field is concerned with internal mental processes such as attention, memory, planning, and more. These concepts are used in cognitive psychology counseling and clinical psychology. A professional in this industry works with online psychology or in-person psychology counseling; the focus remains the same.
How long does it take to get a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology?
Most Ph.D. programs are designed to be completed within five years to earn this type of psychology degree. Some students will take around four years, but most courses are designed to take closer to five to teach students the psychological cognitive processes. Those wishing to go into psychology counseling may also be required to take time to complete courses related directly to counseling.
What jobs are in cognitive psychology?
Psychology counseling is a broad field within psychology, and a cognitive psychology specialist with a psychology degree has several career choices.
What type of psychology makes the most money?
Psychology is a broad field, but the type of psychologist who makes the most money is organizational psychology. With that said, psychiatrists make the most money and are technically psychologists, but it can be confusing given the different titles. Clinical psychology is a well-paying path for a person with a degree in psychology. Psychology cognitive professionals can make a large sum of money from online psychology or in-person psychology.
What are the most common cognitive disorders?
How can we apply cognitive strategies in our daily lives?
Can cognitive psychologists make an official diagnosis?
Why are cognitive psychologists effective in managing mental health problems?
What are the different methods used in cognitive psychology?
Why is it beneficial for us to develop or improve our cognitive skills?
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