Above image of Socrates is a photograph taken by Greg O'Beirne of a "Bust carved by by Victor Wager from a model by Paul Montford, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia." Cropped by User:Tomisti - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Retrieved from Wikipedia at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=808060
The foundation of my clinical skill-set is Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which is the utilization of the Cognitive (thinking) process and the Behavioural (doing) process. It is my experience that the combination of purposeful thinking and doing gains great dividends in efforts to solve problems that exist. A founding skill-set to the CBT process is the utilization of Socratic Questioning, which is also known as Socratic Dialogue the Socratic Method. CBT is most effective when a person strives to beneficially adapt their thinking patterns in response to challenges that exist and then apply the new thinking gained directly to their lived experiences.
Socrates famously stated the ultimate wisdom is the acceptance of humility in knowing that we do not know everything and humanly cannot know everything. In league with this knowledge is the wisdom of Epictetus, in his affirmation that "it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
Socrates famously stated the ultimate wisdom is the acceptance of humility in knowing that we do not know everything and humanly cannot know everything. In league with this knowledge is the wisdom of Epictetus, in his affirmation that "it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
Socratic dialogue is a classic means of questioning, which is focused on discovery by inquiry. The most successful efforts in counselling are achieved by discovery by inquiry. Purposeful teaching of Socratic questioning in counselling will serve to accentuate the effect of counselling.
Clark, G., & Egan, S. (2015). The Socratic method in cognitive behavioural therapy: a narrative review. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 39, 863-879. Doi: 10.1007/s10608-015-9707-3
Farmer, C., Mitchell, K., Guilbert, K., & Galoski, T. (2017). Fidelity to the cognitive processing therapy protocol: evaluation of critical elements. Behavior Therapy, 48, 195-206.
- Socratic questioning is a skill critically important to counselling processes.
- Socratic questioning provides for symptom improvement in counselling. With Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), effective ability to utilize Socratic questioning by clinicians has been found to increase improvement in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Farmer, Mitchell, Guilbert & Galoski, 2017) .
- Clark & Egan (2015) highlight that Socratic dialogue is clearly of benefit in CBT and that successful utilization of the Socratic method takes purposeful training.
Clark, G., & Egan, S. (2015). The Socratic method in cognitive behavioural therapy: a narrative review. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 39, 863-879. Doi: 10.1007/s10608-015-9707-3
Farmer, C., Mitchell, K., Guilbert, K., & Galoski, T. (2017). Fidelity to the cognitive processing therapy protocol: evaluation of critical elements. Behavior Therapy, 48, 195-206.