What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and how can it help?

So, you’ve been trying to find a therapist, have been looking how to better manage anxiety, or you’ve heard about the wonders of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and want to know more? You’ve come to the right place!

In the world of therapy, it can be overwhelming to navigate the many different approaches available. More importantly, it’s often hard to tell which therapies are backed by solid evidence and which are based on more dubious claims, like a disgraced Professor insisting they can remove ghosts from your humors.

Hopefully, we can answer your questions. In this post, we’ll cover what CBT is, real-life examples of how it actually works, and what CBT can be helpful for.

What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy includes a range of talking therapies that help people notice and change unhelpful thinking and behavioural patterns that contribute to feelings of anxiety or depression. CBT focuses on the strong connection between our thoughts, emotions, behaviours and physical sensations, helping to break negative cycles. It is goal-oriented, structured process with a strong emphasis on the present.

Why is CBT so popular?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has grown in popularity in the UK since 2005 when the government decided to make psychological therapies more accessible through the NHS. They chose CBT as their go-to treatment for Anxiety and Depression. The reason they decided this was because CBT is effective and versatile:

It works – It’s backed by solid research and showing it’s effective in treating a broad range of mental health difficulties from anxiety to chronic pain

Flexible – CBT is just as effective whether it’s delivered face to face, online, or a home visit

Feel better faster – It’s a short-term focused therapy that can improve in a relatively short amount of time

Real Examples of how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be used:

Let’s say that we are anxious about driving and we want to tackle that anxiety through CBT. Before addressing the anxiety, we need to understand how it works and what keeps it going. We can start by reflecting on a moment when this anxiety was at it’s peak, considering the thoughts we had, the primary emotion we felt, how we acted, and the physical sensations we experienced. It may look something like this:

From this diagram, known as a CBT formulation, we can begin to see that avoiding parallel parking because you think, "I’m terrible at parking," may seem natural. However, this avoidance may be keeping the anxiety alive, as you never have an opportunity to gather evidence to challenge that belief. So, the anxiety and the belief persist.

If we change our behaviour and try to parallel park despite the anxiety and our thoughts, we might find out that we were better than we thought, that it wasn’t as bad as we thought or that people were more patient than expected. Congrats, you’ve “CBT’d” yourself.

While this is a small, everyday example, this same approach can be applied to more core beliefs that we have about ourself or other people – beliefs that often underlie mental health difficulties.

What can CBT help with?

CBT has been shown to helpful for a wide range of mental health conditions such as:

·      Anxiety Disorders

·      Depression

·      Eating Disorders

·      Insomnia

·      Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

·      Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

·      Psychosis

It has also been shown to be useful in the managing symptoms of:

·      Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

·      Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

·      Fibromyalgia

·      Tinnitus

·      Chronic Pain

What happens during CBT therapy?

The initial sessions are used to gather information about the reason you have come to therapy and setting goals about what you would like to achieve as part of the process. An assessment by the therapist would take place which can include asking about the types of situations your difficulty arises and the impact it has on your day-to-day life.

CBT often includes tasks to work on in between the sessions, this could be things like keeping a track of your thoughts, monitoring behaviours, challenging our assumptions or practicing the techniques discussed in the sessions.

Will CBT work for me?

It’s impossible to say whether a particular type of therapy is the best for you. For some people, paracetamol works wonders for managing headaches, while for others, it has no effect and they need to use ibuprofen instead. What we can say is that CBT has been proven to help the majority of people for the difficulties listed above and a variety of others.

Conclusion

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is an effective approach for dealing with a wide range of difficulties. If you’re dealing with anxiety or depression, CBT can offer practical strategies to challenge the unhelpful patterns we can find ourselves getting stuck in. With an emphasis on the ‘here and now’, it can lead to meaningful improvements in a relatively short amount of time. If you're considering CBT therapy, don’t hesitate to book in for an appointment here.