Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychosocial intervention that helps clients become aware of when they make negative interpretations, and of the behavioral patterns that result from distorted thinking. Once these negative thoughts and resultant behaviors are identified, the therapist helps the client develop alternative ways of thinking and behaving which reinforce the distorted thinking. Then the therapist assists the client in developing alternative ways of thinking and behaving that will help the client reduce their psychological distress.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on challenging cognitive distortions, negative behaviors, improving regulation of emotions and the development of coping strategies that will help the client solve their current problems.

Cognitive Behavioral therapy is a psycho-social intervention that aims to improve mental health. CBT focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems.

CBT works by changing people’s attitudes and their behavior by focusing on the thoughts, images, beliefs and attitudes that are held (a person’s cognitive processes) and how these processes relate to the way a person behaves, as a way of dealing with emotional problems.

There are multiple types of Cognitive Behavioral therapy. Some of these are Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Exposure Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Interpersonal Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), Stress Inoculation Training Cognitive Therapy (CT). All of these therapy approaches have the common objective of changing unhelpful, negative, or distorted thinking and beliefs to change a person’s emotions and behavior.

CBT is effective for treating many different problems including addictions, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic, depression, phobias (including social phobia and agoraphobia), stress, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and psychosis. It has also been proven effective in treating victims or single traumatic events and those who have suffered multiple and/or prolonged trauma.

Used alone, CBT is effective 50-75% of the time in the treatment of depression and anxiety after 8-15 sessions. However, it has been shown that treatment with medication alone is effective at about the same rate: 50-75%. However, it has been found that a combination of medication and CBT is the most effective, with 75-90% of people showing significant improvement of mental illness.

If you and your therapist decide to utilize CBT as a treatment approach, it is likely you will have sessions weekly or every two weeks with each session lasting between 30 to 60 minutes. If Exposure Therapy is chosen, sessions could last longer to make sure anxiety is reduced prior to ending the session.

If you believe you could benefit from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or would like to know more about this approach to therapy, click here to contact us today.