Stress System Approach: A Guide For Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Stress is a continuously developing concept. Since 1930s, a lot of research on stress has been carried out and basically, the stress concepts can be classified into four types. First, it is common to refer to stress as an organism's response to a stressor; second, stress is the stressor which can lead to an organism's response; third, stress is a medium variable between stress source and stress response; and the last, stress is a medium-factor based, multi-factors interacted system. As a theory, Psychological Stress Approach itself has limited meaning in medical psychology. However, it can provide a new point of view for psychological etiology and also provide a psychological interference strategy for clinical research. In Cognitive psychological therapy, viewing stress as a passive response to events around us ignores the fact that most of the time we are active participators in those events. Cognitive therapy helps clients to recognize the negative thought processes that underlie their problems. Cognitive-behavioral approaches consider cognitions to be learned responses that are susceptible to modification by conditioning techniques, or skills that can be modified by training. Although numerous studies have demonstrated that CT is an effective treatment approach for depression and anxiety disorders, it has become clear that some patients do not respond adequately and that some do not respond at all. Poorer outcome in CT may be less social support, poorer social adjustment, severe interpersonal disturbance, and chronic marital discord and personality disorders. General Systems Theory is based on the assumption that there are universal principles. Everything can be seen as a system. The mutual interactions of the component systems in a way "glue" these components together into a whole. If these parts did not interact, the whole wouldnot be more than the sum of its components. But because they interact, something more is added. System approach of psychological stress provides a psychological interference mode, which is named "stress interference strategy", for clinic research and assists psychological consultation and therapy. Firstly, various clinic psychological problems are emotional, behavioral or somatic symptoms, which are the response level of multi-factors interaction in stress system, called "stress response". They can be felt and reported easily by client. The second level of the system contains life events, cognitive appraisal, coping styles and social support. We can judge the relationship between those factors and stress through a properly further and integral analysis. Personality is the core of the system, which is lest reported by clients and the intractable problem, and this is the third level problem. With the aid of system approach of psychological system, therapists should deal with any factor of stress system, for example, controlling or avoiding stressors, replace stress-inducing cognitions with more adaptive alternatives, seeking social support, coping style, relaxation training or drugs et al. In this paper, three examples in the author's institution are discussed and we hope to have further discuss on psychological consultation and therapy.