Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a way of helping us to capture our thoughts and work on them so they are more reflective of a true reality. The way we think impacts our feelings. For example, if you saw a dog approaching you on the walkway, if you thought “That is a ferocious dog who will attack me” you would feel afraid. If you thought “I am not sure about that dog, I will just move to the other side of the road” you might feel quite neutral or a little cautious. If you thought instead “What a cute dog!” you might feel quite happy. Depending on which scenario occurs, our behaviour will also change.
Many situations in our life are a reflection of how we think, sometimes these thoughts are accurate, and sometimes not. Depending on how we appraise a situation, we will not only feel differently, we will also behave differently.
What CBT consists of
Typically, your mental health worker would:
- Help you identify what the problem you are encountering is, discussing onset, duration, and severity of symptoms. This would usually consist of an interview and some validated questionnaires.
- Work with you to identify your goals for therapy. This helps to narrow down goals and sets some realistic expectations about your therapy
- Discover with you the situations that elicit strong emotions and therefore some strongly impacting thoughts
- Work on these thoughts to elicit realistic evidence about whether these thoughts are true, and therefore whether a different emotional experience is appropriate
- Identify new ways of engaging similar situations, where we behave, think and feel in a different way towards a more clarified mental health.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has been found to be very effective in the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders. To take those first steps call us now and we can take you through.
