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Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
What is CBT?
CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy) is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are all intimately connected and constantly influencing each other.
Therefore, if you are continually experiencing negative or unhelpful thoughts and feelings, this can often lead to behaviours such as procrastination, avoidance, or any other unhelpful behaviour that you try to do that temporarily distracts you. Thinking in this way can lead to conditions such as anxiety, depression, anger, low-self-esteem to name a few.
The basic premise of CBT is that it’s our belief or interpretation of a situation, rather than the situation itself, that causes us problems. These beliefs stem from our personal life experiences, the understanding we have about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. CBT helps by becoming aware of these distorted thinking patterns and learning techniques to change the way you react to your thoughts and feelings.
CBT is also about helping you understand the importance of being logical and rational and looking at fact rather than interpretation. Additionally, it’s about learning to understand that we don’t necessarily have to ‘like’ a situation, but we are still able to tolerate it. CBT is about helping you to initially be able to acknowledge uncomfortable thoughts and feelings then moving towards acceptance and understanding of yourself and of other people.
I specialise in REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour therapy) which is a branch of CBT that focusses like CBT on your current thinking about a particular problem or situation. One of the emphasis of REBT is to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy emotions and to help you to develop healthier ways of thinking and feeling. REBT incorporates many of the CBT techniques, but also incorporates other modalities such as Mindfulness, ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) and assertiveness, making it a personal integrative holistic approach to mental & physical wellbeing.
Because we all react differently, the REBT sessions are tailored to your specific needs and thinking styles. This means that progressing through a course of REBT you will learn personalised techniques and exercises that will enable you to get the most out of your sessions. REBT isn’t just about changing the way you think and feel. The sessions involve developing and reinforcing healthier ways of thinking and feeling by learning techniques to weaken your unhealthy beliefs and strengthen newly formulated healthier beliefs.
“You can’t control the thoughts that come into your head, but you can learn to change the way you react to these thoughts. CBT is about learning and developing this skill”.
For more information on CBT https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/#WhatIsCBT
How Effective is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT?
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the most widely used therapies for mental health. It can be effective in the treatment of many emotional problems, such as generalised anxiety disorders (GAD), social anxiety and depression, along with, stress, phobias, anger and jealousy or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Clinical trials have shown that CBT can reduce the symptoms of many emotional disorders. For some people it can work just as well as drug therapies at treating depression and anxiety disorders. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends CBT for a number of common mental health disorders. In most cases, it takes a number of sessions before the therapy starts to make a difference, therefore a group of sessions (generally between 6 and 12) is required to make the best use of CBT / REBT.
For more information:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg90/ifp/chapter/treatments-for-mild-to-moderate-depression
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg113/chapter/Key-priorities-for-implementation
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg113/chapter/Key-priorities-
