Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a popular therapeutic approach for treating many psychological issues. Although it’s considered one of the most effective ways of dealing with difficulties, only around 40% of people who could benefit from CBT will receive treatment. This is why it’s important to promote awareness about its benefits on mental health and encourage more people to seek treatment if they need it.
People often use the term ‘therapy’ when talking about seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist; however, this isn’t accurate for all cases. There are some psychologists that do employ counselling methods, but not all therapists provide this service. The reason that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has become so popular is that there’s strong evidence behind it. It works faster than traditional psychotherapy and can help with a wide range of mental health problems.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be used to treat: depression, anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, addictions and personality disorders including borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Dr Russ Harris is an Australian psychologist who has written the self-help guide ‘The Happiness Trap’. He says that CBT is based on two simple principles: “First, our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviour, not the external world; we act on what we tell ourselves, not what actually happens. Second, it’s possible to learn new ways of thinking which will automatically improve how we feel and what we do.”
The premise of CBT is that a person’s behaviours, emotions and thoughts are interconnected. So if you change one part of the process – such as your behaviour – it will have an effect on other parts. For example, imagine you’re going through a rough patch at work. You start coming home from work feeling very stressed and anxious because you’re worried about losing your job. Even though things eventually settle down, they pick up again six months later when your company restructures and there’s more pressure to produce results. As a result, you start arriving home from work even earlier than before – at 5 pm – with a sinking feeling in your stomach as you have another stressful evening ahead. Your thought was: “I’m going to be stuck at work for another four hours.”
This is an example of how our thoughts can lead to feelings and behaviours, which cause us even more stress. This is why it’s important to break down these patterns and examine them as they come up. There also needs to be aware that this pattern exists and that we do have a choice in how we respond – we don’t need to go through life feeling stressed and anxious each time something triggers us. The reason so many people find it difficult to change their behaviours relates back to the first principles of CBT: thoughts affect emotions and behaviour, not the other way around!
When you’re using CBT, your therapist help you become aware of unhelpful patterns in your thinking and what’s known as “cognitive distortions.” For example, you may think that if one aspect of your life isn’t going the way you want it to, then everything is just generally terrible. This type of self-talk can bring about feelings such as hopelessness and helplessness.
You’ll learn how to become more aware of these kinds of thoughts and how to challenge them. You might discover that your assumptions aren’t always accurate; for instance, when we believe we’re ‘all alone,’ we often exaggerate our problems and feel inadequate compared with other people. A therapist will help you see things from a different perspective and teach you techniques to break down overwhelming emotions into smaller parts, which reduces stress levels.
Post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health disorders
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s triggered by witnessing or experiencing a frightening event, either as the victim of an incident themselves or as the witness to it happening to someone else. Symptoms include nightmares and flashbacks, plus feelings of anxiety and depression. CBT therapists will work with you to come up with strategies to deal with the triggers that are usually involved in triggering PTSD – for example, loud noises can make some people feel anxious because it reminds them of gunfire, bombs going off or emergency vehicles.
The thing is, most of us have some irrational fears that are hard to talk ourselves out of – things like public speaking, enclosed spaces or heights. People with anxiety can often develop phobias toward situations where they’re likely to face their fear. They may also avoid the trigger altogether because it’s just too uncomfortable for them. But this is entirely different to someone who has PTSD; they might be afraid of something like fireworks at a party , but this isn’t enough to make them feel panicky and overwhelmed.
Either way, over time you’ll work with your therapist on gradually exposing yourself to these triggers in order to bring down their power over you . A lot of people find that the only way they can deal with their fears is to avoid them altogether, which only reinforces the fear. If you have a phobia that relates to an object or animal, you might be referred to a cognitive-behavioural therapist for animal therapy .
Treating anxiety disorders and depression
The good thing about CBT is that it’s been proven to work by numerous studies on many different conditions , including panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). As with other mental health issues such as depression, there are no lab tests available to diagnose someone with these conditions. It all comes down your personal experiences of psychological distress or feeling overwhelmed by anxiety.
In OCD, people can feel driven to behave in certain ways over and over again. For example, you might feel like you have to wash your hands until they’re raw, or check the door is locked ten times. You might also fear that something terrible will happen if you don’t do things in a certain way – for example, thinking that not checking the door lock will result in an intruder entering your home and harming someone inside.
People with OCD may be aware of their compulsion to repeatedly perform rituals, yet this awareness fails to stop them doing it. You may feel obliged to follow these behaviours – otherwise known as obsessions – but never find pleasure from them. CBT therapists work closely with clients to help them realise their compulsions and try and change how they respond to them. One approach is conditioning: instead of reacting automatically because it
Mental disorders that affect mental and physical health and any other forms of mental illness should always be taken for a cbt therapist to assess and provide medication. PTSD is one condition that cognitive behavioral therapists can easily diagnose from the symptoms displayed by the patient, some of the conditions include; panic disorder, chronic pain in the head, emotional trauma, learning difficulties, negative emotions which are usually seen in people with substance use disorders and negative thinking. As cbt therapy aims to treat the mental illness symptoms and help the patient appreciate the healthier thinking patterns, cognitive therapy also tackles emotional challenges and aims to boost the low self-esteem of the patient and help them avoid social anxiety.
The individual is guided from the beginning of treatment with the initial goals set out by the cbt therapist. Therapy sessions are always held once a week and each session lasts for about an hour. In most cases, six to ten sessions are enough for patients to be able to deal with their untreated mental illness symptoms successfully without facing any challenges in daily life. Although cognitive behavior therapists monitor progress regularly, they usually have a patient follow up every few months after the completion of therapy.
Cognitive behavior therapies can also help people adjust well with physical changes or disabilities as well as learning how to manage stress better and achieve a balance between work and personal life. Cognitive behavioral therapy is helpful for those individuals who suffer from low self-esteem as well as those who need help in building confidence and learning how to avoid depression.
There is no evidence that CBT “cures” autism spectrum conditions, but it has been found effective in reducing associated anxiety , improving social skills , increasing communication skills , increasing willingness to engage with others , reducing self-injurious behaviour , reducing disruptive behaviour or other problem behaviours , lowering levels of obsessive compulsive behaviour , reducing school refusal behaviour
and improving academic performance . It can also be adapted for use with children who have not yet developed language. It has also been successfully applied to group
How to do away with mental health conditions
Doing away with the mental health conditions depends on a deeper understanding of the condition by cbt therapists, cbt focuses not only on the mental health disorder but also on other medical illness which can lead to triggering of emotional responses by the victims. The National Association of cognitive-behavioural therapists advises family members to manage stressful life situations and seek better communication skills with the patients. One of the other treatments that can be used to boost more confidence among the patients is keeping them away from triggers that can lead them to drug abuse.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a kind of therapy that has helped many people. CBT can help you learn to manage problems like anxiety and other symptoms related to mental illness. Find out more about the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at Mental Health Treatment Information Directory. Mental health conditions should be taken seriously and always addressed by professionals who know what they’re doing and can provide help in dealing with them. If you’re currently facing any sort of psychological disorder, start searching for cbt therapists near your area or visit your family doctor because there might be something wrong that could affect your everyday life and contribute towards depression or similar cases. There are so many great things that cognitive-behavioural therapy can help you with, let us just hope that there are even better professionals out there who will serve as role models for their patients.
Eating disorders and CBT
CBT therapists work with their patients to come up with strategies to deal with the triggers that are usually involved in triggering an eating disorder. They will also clearly mark out steps of CBT which can be used by the patient at home to help them cope with the disorder. CBT for eating disorders has been shown to lead people towards better understanding of how they think, feel and act when it comes to food. This goes a long way in helping sufferers develop more positive relationships both with their bodies and food.
Doing away with mental health conditions through cbt therapy
Eating disorders are seen as complicated emotional phenomena which can lead victims towards isolation from loved ones. For this reason, family members are advised to seek counselling services for themselves so that they can be able to better understand their loved ones. CBT helps in giving the patients the necessary coping skills and coping mechanisms that they can use in stressful situations. As many therapists teach people; therapy depends on the different therapeutic approaches that other therapies use to prescribe medications but for BBT talk therapy is the main approach. Some of the other benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy include the repair of the different thought patterns but this will depend on how many sessions the patient has to be taken through before they are completely free of the medical condition. The mental conditions that make patients have automatic negative thoughts which is usually seen in many mental health conditions can also be treated using cognitive behavioral therapy cbt. Cognitive behavioral therapy has resulted in patients becoming better at identifying their emotions and this has led to fewer incidents of panic attacks.
