What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of counseling or psychotherapy.
- “Cognitive” refers to thoughts and beliefs, things you tell yourself in your mind.
- “Behavioral” refers to actions or behaviors, things you do.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that aims to help people understand the interconnections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Then, we identify unhelpful or destructive thought patterns and behavior patterns that have a negative influence on people’s emotions and sense of well-being. Finally, we replace them with helpful patterns and coping strategies.
As an evidence-based treatment, CBT focuses on current problems and attempts to find solutions for them.
CBT can be a very helpful tool either alone or in combination with other treatment modalities in managing emotions in general and in treating mental health conditions.
CBT is based on the beliefs that:
Our thoughts and beliefs influence our feelings and actions.
For example, your boss didn’t say hello to you this morning. Your thoughts might be: “Did I do anything wrong? I hope she is not mad at me. Why do I always mess up?” These thoughts may lead you to feel nervous and rejected. You may get mad at yourself or your boss. Then these feelings may lead you to make mistakes or get snappy with others.
Or you might have the thoughts: “Maybe she was distracted and didn’t see me. Oh well. I will talk to her later.” Then you may just forget about it and go on with your day.
The situation is the same but we can have dramatically different emotional reactions based on our thoughts, beliefs, or interpretations of the situation. A lot of times, we may not be able to change the situation we are facing, but we have more power to recognize and change what we think.
Our actions can be learned and unlearned.
The patterns of our behaviors are partly learned from others in our environment and/or from past experiences, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, if your family yells at each other to communicate, then you are more likely to do the same thing with your family and other people in your life. If you were repeatedly hurt by people close to you, then you may have learned to put up a wall and not to trust anybody.
The behavior patterns we learned can be outdated and no longer helpful once we are not in the same environment or interacting with the same people. We may continue to carry out those patterns automatically because we are wired to do so. However, just like how we learned them, we can also unlearn those unhelpful outdated patterns and replace them with new ones that are more beneficial based on our current reality.
By recognizing and changing our thoughts and actions, we can have better control of our emotions and subsequent actions.
We can’t change our feelings directly in that when you are depressed, you can’t just suddenly be happy just because you tell yourself to be happy.
However, once you are more aware of your negative thoughts and actions that are fueling your unwanted emotions or life situations. You will be better able to change those unhelpful thoughts. As a result, you will be better able to change your feelings or solve problems.
Types of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT covers a broad range of techniques and strategies that address thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. There are a number of therapeutic approaches that involve CBT, such as:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), is a very structured treatment modality involving individual therapy and group skills training. It incorporates mindfulness as a set of core skills in addition to addressing thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), is an evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents impacted by trauma and their parents and caregivers. It is a structured, short-term treatment.
What can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy help with?
CBT has demonstrated effectiveness for a range of different problems:
- Depression
- Anxiety disorders
- Phobias
- Sleep disorders
- Substance use disorders
- Trauma or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
But you don’t need to have a specific mental health diagnosis to benefit from CBT. It can also help with:
- Stress management
- Grief and loss
- Low self-esteem or Imposter Syndrome
- Relationship challenges
- Dealing with the transition to parenthood and postpartum
- Breakup or divorce
Does CBT really work?
CBT is one of the most researched treatment modalities, partly because it focuses on specific goals which can be measured more easily and it tends to be shorter-term compared to other approaches such as psychoanalysis. There have been numerous studies demonstrating the effectiveness of CBT.
Click here to learn more about “Why Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Is the Current Gold Standard of Psychotherapy.”
Some common CBT strategies and techniques include:
- learning to increase self-awareness
- working on recognizing unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviors
- cognitive restructuring by learning and recognizing cognitive distortions
- learning healthy coping skills
- learning problem-solving skills
- using role-play in session
- homework assignments to practice new learning
- implementing positive activities, etc.
In the end, clients are expected to be able to use the skills learned to deal with life’s challenges, have more confidence in their abilities to solve problems, and increase their general sense of well-being and life satisfaction.
Consider Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in North Carolina
With the help of a CBT therapist in North Carolina, you can reframe and better cope with life’s changes and challenges. Mindspace Counseling will help you take control of your thoughts again. Follow these steps:
- Reach out to Mindspace Counseling
- Meet with one of our CBT therapists
- Start processing more effectively and move forward into the life you deserve!
Other Services Offered at Mindspace Counseling in North Carolina
CBT is not the only service we offer at our North Carolina-based therapy practice. To help you heal, we also provide anxiety treatment, grief counseling, EMDR, and EMDR intensive therapy. Additionally, we offer postpartum mental health, and perinatal mental health counseling. In fact, we can help you virtually via online therapy in North Carolina and online therapy in Florida. Get connected with us today.
