What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

CBT is very structured and goal-oriented and requires a joint effort between the therapist and patient. This means that both the patient and therapist must take an active role in understanding the patient’s issues, identifying the goals to be accomplished through treatment and working to reach these goals. An individual’s immediate, unpremeditated interpretations of events are referred to as automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts shape both the individual’s emotions and their actions in response to events.

This is a primary goal of CBT and can be practiced with or without the help of a therapist. In order to unravel cognitive distortions, you must first become aware of the distortions from which you commonly suffer (Hamamci, 2002). “This simple idea is that our unique patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are significant factors in our experiences, both good and cognitive behavioral therapy bad. Since these patterns have such a significant impact on our experiences, it follows that altering these patterns can change our experiences” (Martin, 2016). Most psychotherapists who practice CBT personalize and customize the therapy to the specific needs of each patient. One 2018 study found therapists reported worsening symptoms in 9% of people in therapy.

Is CBT right for me? Questions to ask before you start

Then they consider perpetuating factors, to discover what reinforcers may be maintaining the current problem. This is another technique that will be familiar to practitioners of mindfulness. There are many ways to relax and bring regularity to your breath, including guided and unguided imagery, audio recordings, YouTube videos, and scripts. Bringing regularity and calm to your breath will allow you to approach your problems from a place of balance, facilitating more effective and rational decisions (Megan, 2016). You can use audio guidance, a YouTube video, or simply your own mind to practice this technique, and it can be especially helpful for calming nerves and soothing a busy and unfocused mind.

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world. Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today. CBT aims to identify harmful thoughts, assess whether they are an accurate depiction of reality, and, if they are not, employ strategies to challenge and overcome them.

Depression Clinical & Research Program

Brief cognitive behavioral therapy, or BCBT, is a shortened form of CBT used in situations where the client is not able to undergo a longer course of therapy. 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.

If your coping strategies are not totally effective against the problems and difficulties that are happening, you are instructed to list other strategies that may work better. In this technique, the individual who is vulnerable to crippling fear or anxiety conducts a sort of thought experiment in which they imagine the outcome of the worst-case scenario. You can combine journaling with this technique, or use journaling to understand how this technique makes you feel. For example, if you believe that you must have a high-paying job to be a respectable person, but you’re then laid off from your high-paying job, you will begin to feel bad about yourself.