1. What’s in Your Filing Cabinet?:
Angela Willits, LCSW
The Use of Cognitive Behavior Theory to Increase Self-Awareness Among Social Work Practitioners
Angela Willits, MSW, LCSW

2. Objectives Introduce cognitive behavior theory and the cognitive model
Explore the concept of automatic thoughts and apply this to self
Introduce the “filing cabinet” analogy and use this to understand self schemas
Apply awareness of personal schemas to cultural humility
Angela Willits, LCSW

3. Cognitive Behavior Theory
Developed by Aaron T. Beck in the 1950’s
Foundation for cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT)
Time-limited, evidence-based psychotherapy for a range of mental health concerns
More than 300 studies of CBT (Wright, Basco & Thase, 2006)
Used in treating depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, addictions, bipolar disorder, PTSD, eating disorders
Adapted for range of ages, cultures and education levels
Used with individuals, groups, couples and families (Beck, 1995)
Angela Willits, LCSW

4. The Cognitive-Behavioral Model
“Humans continually appraise the significance of events in the environment around and within them” (Wright et al., 2006, p. 4).
Basic principle:
Angela Willits, LCSW

5. A birthday party
Two people
Angela Willits, LCSW

6. ABC Sheet Person #1 Person #2 Invited to birthday party “Yay!”
Situation
Thoughts
Feelings and Behavior
Invited to birthday party
“Yay!”
“I can’t wait to go!”
“This will be fun!”
Excited
Happy
Go to the party and have a great time
Situation
Thoughts
Feelings and Behavior
Invited to birthday party
“Oh no.”
“What if I don’t know anyone?”
“This will be a disaster.”
Nervous
Scared
Don’t go to the party OR
Go and have a terrible time
Angela Willits, LCSW

7. Automatic Thoughts Rapid-fire and brief Private, unspoken
We may be unaware of them
A powerful influence on how we feel and behave
For example: in depression and anxiety thoughts tend to be negatively biased, distorted and overly critical
“It’s hopeless.” “I’m a failure.” “I’ll never measure up.”
“What if I mess up?” “Something bad is going to happen.”
Angela Willits, LCSW

8. Critical Thinking Question
Why might it be important for us, as social workers, to have an awareness of our automatic thoughts?
Angela Willits, LCSW

9. Self-awareness
“Social workers always return to the need to be self-aware and self-knowing, for authentic dialogue with and true understanding of our clients, as well as for effective helping” (Siporin, 1985, as cited in Miley, O’Melia and DuBois, 2017)
Angela Willits, LCSW

10. Step One in Increasing Self-Awareness
“Catching” automatic thoughts using ABC sheet
A mental skill
Goal: Think about your thinking
Metacognition
Notice themes, patterns, biases
Angela Willits, LCSW

11. Where do automatic thoughts come from?
Schemas
Angela Willits, LCSW

12. Schemas Attitudes, rules and assumptions (Beck, 1995)
How we see ourselves, others and the world
“frames of reference”
Mental structures of people’s common knowledge from life experiences (Bartlett, 1932)
Help us organize the world, assign meaning, plan and predict
Allow us to quickly process information
Develop in early childhood
Influenced by parents, education, peers, major life events (good and bad), the media and culture
Can evolve over time based on exposure to new experiences and information
Angela Willits, LCSW

13. The Filing Cabinet Imagine your brain as a sophisticated filing
cabinet (Resick, 2006)
Includes our beliefs and
values
Why does the brain like to
generalize, categorize and
organize?
Evolution baby!
Angela Willits, LCSW

14. Food for thought
Schemas are the foundation for our personal beliefs and values
Our Code of Ethics introduces a set of professional values
Are we creating new files for these?
What if these (perhaps new) professional values do not fit with our long-held personal values (schemas)?
Our clients screen options for change through their value systems and most readily apply change strategies that are congruent with their existing beliefs (Miley, O’Melia and DuBois, 2017)
Angela Willits, LCSW

15. Good things happen to good people; Bad things happen to bad people.
The Just World Belief
Good things happen to good people; Bad things happen to bad people.
Angela Willits, LCSW

16. Schemas: Helpful or Problematic?
We readily recognize and accept information that supports our existing schemas (Beck, 1995)
We see and believe what we are “primed” to see
Information that counters our existing schemas is easily discounted; not easily accepted and integrated
Our perception of the new information is often modified to fit existing schemas (assimilation)
What are some challenges pre-existing schemas (beliefs and values) might present to us as social workers?
“Our expectations [schemas] are influential in shaping how we understand experiences and in swaying our responses” (Miley, O’Melia & DuBois, 2017)
Angela Willits, LCSW

17. Step Two in Increasing Self-Awareness
Gain a deeper understanding of our schemas
Spot patterns in automatic thoughts – what is the core belief underneath?
Remember and reflect on formative influences throughout your life history
What experiences led to these beliefs?
What role does my culture play?
How do my schemas influence my practice?
Angela Willits, LCSW

18. Schemas and Cultural humility
Angela Willits, LCSW

19. What’s in your Filing Cabinet? Stereotypes
Our files about others, based on media, family, and experiences, contain stereotypes and generalizations (biases)
Inevitable categorization – bias is more automatic than people think (Fiske, 2002)
“even among relatively unprejudiced people, racial category labels automatically prime stereotypes” (Fiske, 2002, p. 124)
Our biases lead to automatic thoughts and assumptions on gender, race, ethnicity, ability, class, age (whether we agree with them or not) (Ranganath & Nosek, 2008)
“Biases are stories we have about people before we know who they are” – Verna Myers
Can contribute to microaggressions
Angela Willits, LCSW

20. Reducing Bias and Stereotypes in our Files
Culturally sensitive social work practice means catching stereotypes in our automatic thoughts and exploring the underlying schemas
Go looking for your biases
Resist the brain’s urge to generalize and aim to individualize
The good news: Our primary schemas about a culture can be modified with exposure (Beamer, 1995)
Education
“Constructive intergroup contact that increases mutual appreciation” (Pettigrew, 1998 in Fiske, 2002)
Continue to enter situations outside your comfort zone
Angela Willits, LCSW

21. Concepts Review
Learned about cognitive-behavior theory and the cognitive model
Explored the importance of thinking about our thinking by “catching” our automatic thoughts
Discussed the influence of schemas using the “filing cabinet” analogy
Considered the challenges of pre-existing schemas to culturally sensitive social work practice
Identified ways to challenge our primary schemas
Angela Willits, LCSW

22. The Presenter Angela Willits, MSW, LCSW
is a clinical assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her role as field faculty, she provides supervision to MSW students in their advanced practice year. She also provides consultation and assistance to agency supervisors, with an emphasis on supporting agency supervisors in providing critical feedback to their students. She has more than seven years of clinical experience with the Department of Veterans Affairs with a specialty in treating posttraumatic stress disorder. She is a certified provider of both Prolonged Exposure Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy. Within her role at the VA, she provided both group and individual supervision to students of multiple disciplines.
Angela Willits, LCSW

23. References
Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Beamer, L. (1995). A schemata model for intercultural encounters and case study: The emperor and the envoy. The journal of business communication, 32:2, Beck, J.S. (1995). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond. New York: The Guilford Press. Chang, WW. (2009). Schema adjustment in cross-cultural encounters: A study of expatriate international aid service workers. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33, Fiske, S.T (2002). What we know now about bias and intergroup conflict, the problem of the century. Current directions in Psychological Science, 11:4, Kingdon, D.G & Turkington, D. (2005). Cognitive therapy of schizophrenia. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Miley, O’Melia & DuBois. (2017). Generalist Social Work Practice: An empowering approach. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Ranganath, K.A. & Nosek, B.A. (2008). Implicit attitude generalization occurs immediately; Explicit attitude generalization takes time. Psychological Science, 19:3, Resick, P.A., Monson, M.M. & Chard, K.M. (2006). Cognitive processing therapy: Veteran/Military Version. National Center for PTSD. Wright, J.H., Basco, M.R., & Thase, M.E. (2006). Learning cognitive-behavior therapy: An illustrated guide. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
Angela Willits, LCSW