Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most common and best studied forms of psychotherapy. It is a combination of two therapeutic approaches, known as cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy.
What is cognitive behavioral therapy?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of evidence based therapy that helps high achievers like you understand how your thoughts, emotions, and actions are all connected. Our cognitive behavioral therapists collaborate with you to identify destructive thought, emotion, and behavior patterns. We then assist you in identifying the most effective methods to address those patterns and mentor you in utilizing those skills even when you are not in treatment.
Some techniques that are often associated with cognitive behavioral therapy include:
- Guided discovery to help you understand the root of your patterns and explore where you want to go from there
- Cognitive restructuring to help you examine your beliefs and reframe them
- Exposure to help you confront your fears and phobias
- Journaling to help you get in touch with your own thoughts
- Thought Records to keep track of new thoughts and new behaviors and see how far you’ve come
- Behavior Activation to help you establish good habits and give you an opportunity to put what you’ve learned into practice
- Relaxation Techniques to lower stress and increase sense of control
- Role Play to help you work through different behaviors in potentially difficult situations
- Successive Approximation to help you break large tasks into smaller, more achievable steps
Which thought and behavioral patterns are harmful, which are not?
Harmful thoughts or behavioral habits can make people feel bad about themselves. For example: You see somebody you know on the street and say hello, but they do not say hello back. Your own reaction to that very much depends on how you assess the situation:
Reaction: Harmful Neutral
Thoughts: “He ignored me – he doesn’t like me anymore.”
“He didn't notice me – maybe he doesn’t feel well. I should give him a call and find out how he is doing.”
Feelings: Someone who thinks like this feels down, sad and rejected.
These thought patterns do not cause any negative feelings.
Behavior: The consequence of this thought is to avoid this person in the future, although the assumption could be completely false. This thought is a prompt to get back in touch with the person to find out if everything is all right.
How is cognitive behavioral therapy different from other psychotherapies?
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a problem-oriented strategy. It focuses on current problems and finding solutions for them. Unlike psychoanalysis, for example, it does not deal primarily with the past. Cognitive behavioral therapy is much more concerned with dealing with current problems. The most important thing is helping people to help themselves: They should be able to cope with their lives again without therapy as soon as possible. This does not mean that cognitive behavioral therapy completely ignores the influence of past events. But it mainly deals with identifying and changing current distressing thought and behavioral patterns.
Analytic psychotherapy, which has its origin in classic Freudian psychoanalysis, uses different methods. Here the therapist tries to help the patient discover and understand problems and their deeper causes.
When is cognitive behavioral therapy an option?
Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders, and addictions. But it is also an option for treating physical conditions such as chronic pain, tinnitus and rheumatism. It can help to relieve the symptoms.
Cognitive behavioral therapy requires the patient's commitment and own initiative. Therapy can only be successful if the patient actively takes part in the treatment and also works on their problems between sessions. This can be a considerable challenge, especially with severe conditions such as depression or anxiety disorders. That is why medication is sometimes used at first to quickly relieve the worst symptoms so that psychotherapy can be started.
Choosing a certain kind of psychotherapy also depends on the goals. If you feel the need for deep insight into the causes of your problems, cognitive behavioral therapy is probably not the right choice. It is particularly useful if you are mainly interested in tackling specific problems and are only secondarily concerned with the “why.”
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy FAQ
More and more people are becoming familiar with Telehealth, a process by which patients receive treatment via teleconferencing on the internet. Teletherapy is one important subset of Telehealth, allowing those in therapy to continue treatment when they are unable to reach their therapist’s office.
Mindwell offers Teletherapy for patients who are receiving CBT. We provide you with the HIPAA-compliant software you need to access your private sessions. You can then access your session at your scheduled time and get all the benefits you would normally have from your CBT session. Contact us today to schedule your first teletherapy session.
Do you have consistent patterns of negative thinking about yourself and your life? Do these thoughts prevent you from enjoying life to its fullest? Then CBT may be an effective intervention for you.
Side effects resulting from psychotherapy cannot be ruled out. Being directly confronted with your problems or anxieties may be very stressful at first, and relationships might also suffer as a result. It is crucial to speak openly with your psychotherapist if any difficulties come up during therapy.
Hardly any research has been done on possible side effects of psychotherapy.
I’m incompetent
I’m not good enough.
I don’t deserve good things.
My life is going to fall apart.
No one likes me.
I hate my body.
Everyone thinks I’m a faker.
This negative thinking is not the truth; it is the result of a mental health disorder. Contact us to see how CBT can help you with negative thinking.
Let’s talk about your specific needs.