The author of this work is currently employed as a community psychiatric nurse whose remit is to work with those clients with serious and enduring mental illness, the majority of whom have a medical diagnosis of schizophrenia and related psychosis.

Over the past 10 years there's been a growing movement towards diverse treatments for schizophrenia other than the acknowledged role of medication as a treatment modality (Birchwood and Tarrier 1993). Developments in psychological theory have led to a number of innovative psychological treatments drawn from human experimental psychology such as behavioural and social psychology and cognitive science.

Therapies based on cognitive behavioural theory have been rapidly developing, initially for the so called ‘neurotic disorders’ but in recent years evidence has accumulated to suggest that these cognitive behavioural approaches can be effective for those people suffering from psychosis ( Williams 1995).
The aim of this assignment is to explore the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and review its’ therapeutic application to schizophrenia. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is an evolutionary paradigm that came about a from the merging of the established paradigm of behavioural therapy and contemporary cognitive therapy (Clarke and Fairburn 1997). Behavioural therapy historically focused on anxiety, phobic and obsessional disorders. Treatments were aligned to the learning theories of Pavlov and Skinner, anxieties and phobias were conceptualise to be conditioned fear responses, passively acquired and elicited by conditioned stimulii (Clarke and Fairburn 1997). A variety of techniques were employed to enable the client to ‘unlearn’ these acquired behaviours. These treatments regimes were concerned with maladaptive habits and behaviours; thought and emotional responses where considered reactive