Cognitive
Behavioral Education
Cognitive Behavioral Education (CBE) - The Substance Use Approach For The Future.
Simply put, CBE is three things:
- A well-defined, yet informative method of presenting Freedom Model information.
- The choice an individual makes to voluntarily learn the CBE methods, and
- The information itself: CBE for Substance Use curriculum. The curriculum is the written lesson plan that presents ways to make the Freedom Model Triad a more conscious reality in life. That is its singular goal.
CBE as a method
To understand better what CBE as a method is, one needs to understand the core of the Freedom Model Triad.
What is the Freedom Model Triad?
There are three vital, natural, undeniable and universal gifts all humans possess internally at birth. These inherited gifts provide for human beings to be able to change, adapt, create, and overcome any obstacle put in his/her path and to do so at will. This, of course, includes substance use habits. Again, the three internal components of man listed below make up what we call the Freedom Model Triad, (or FMT for short). The FMT is the following:
- The Positive Drive Principle (PDP) - this principle is the basis of all internal human motivation (including yours). It states: "All people always move in the direction of what they believe will make them happiest at every given moment in time."
- Free will - you can, and do, choose all of your own thoughts and all of your behaviors based on your internal freedom of will.
- Personal Autonomy - you are a separate, completely independent being from all others, with thoughts that are yours and yours alone. This makes you completely free from the control of all others.
Combining the triad as one, the FMT is defined in a single sentence as:
"All people have the natural right, the ability and the inherent tools to think freely within themselves and independently of all others, and can, and do, exercise and express those thoughts as behaviors through free will and free choice, from birth to death and that at any and every given instant in time a single internal drive motivates every human being: the pursuit of happiness."
This then, is the fundamental internal nature of mankind: the Freedom Model Triad.
CBE as a choice
All individuals are born with the freedom of choice and how they decide to use that freedom can significantly change their lives. CBE provides information about four distinct universal principles that when understood have massive benefits to his/her life:
The Four Universal Principles (Axioms):
- Change is constant.
- You are what you think.
- There is no free lunch.
- Your happiness is in your hands.
CBE's value to the individual can be summed up in the following list:
- Cognition is a primary causal force...
- Behaviors are a result of that cognitive force...
- The Education provided is presented in a passive manner to understand how an individual personally controls both cognition and its resultant chosen behaviors.
CBE as a curriculum
CBE for Substance Use is a curriculum that is split into three modules; each with its own theme and purpose that adds to the whole. The goal of the curriculum is not as it would appear initially. While CBE addresses substance use issues, its goal is not to teach people how to use or not use substances. Rather, CBE's aim is simply to acquaint, or reacquaint, individuals with the truth of the Freedom Model Triad. In understanding the Triad and all that it provides the individual, CBE rejoins the individual with the reality of the core power of man's mind - and that power is fostered through choices and behaviors. Once acquainted with what is actually natural to humankind, the individual then has immediate paths on which to form new goals - one of which may be to modify or abstain from substances. With that said, because the Triad is naturally freeing, knowledge of the freeing capabilities automatically opens possibilities and avenues to new options.
The path laid out in the curriculum to comprehensively understand the Triad is a three module process:
- Shedding the Addict/Alcoholic Identity
- Axiom Based Self-Analysis
- Life Movements
The curriculum itself is both a text and a series of workbooks that provide questions in a CBE non-coercive voluntary-learning format. Exercises and questions that are aimed at the individual's full understanding of the chapter content are the norm throughout the work. But also, each lesson is not a series of simple direct memorization style questions, but rather questions aimed at critically thinking and applying the theme of each chapter to the individual's personal circumstances. This facilitates learning and discussion with a Certified CBE Presenter.