Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, is founded on the belief that negative thinking leads to negative emotions, which leads to self destructive behaviors. You should alter your thinking in case you wish to modify your behaviors.
“Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches one to stop believing whatever you believe,” explains Scott Bea, PsyD, a psychologist in the Cleveland Clinic section of psychiatry and psychology. “Fictitious ideas lead to negative emotions that drive behaviors, and those behaviours encourage the bogus ideas.”
If you’re ready to make the effort, cBT could get you off that treadmill. “Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a proactive treatment,” says Madhukar Trivedi, MD, a psychiatry professor and manager of the Depression Center at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “You have to work with a therapist to improve how you think, feel, and act. It demands instruction, understanding, and participation.”
A Short History of CBT
As it’s used now, there have been many contributors to CBT and there are different types. Psychologist Albert Ellis, PhD, developed a talk therapy called rational emotive therapy in the mid-1950s as an alternative to psychoanalysis, which he felt was time-consuming and wasteful. Aaron Beck, MD, developed cognitive therapy as a means to take care of depression. The roots of CBT may be tracked all the way back to the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus wrote, “Men are disturbed not by things, but from the view which they take of them.” CBT is based on the idea that it is not individuals, locations, occasions, or alternative things that cause many mental disorders; it’s exactly how we choose to react to them.
“Cognitive-behavioral therapists educate one to get some good separation from your ideas,” says Dr. Bea. “You are able to acknowledge them, but you let them pass without letting them control you. In that way, it is much like mindfulness meditation.”
How CBT Works
CBT changes thought processes and thought nerve pathways by replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. To do it, you should work with your therapist to learn the best way to think and behave otherwise. Here’s how it works:
- ??CBT is drawn out and not long. The typical amount of sessions is 16.
- You as well as your therapist will work to identify your aims and learn what behaviours and ideas are restricting you.
- Take them and you will learn to identify your problems, so that you’re in a better state of mind to manage them.
- Sessions are practical, educational, and powerful.
- You should have assignments. Your therapist can help you grasp the way to change behavior, emotions, and thinking, by practicing everything you learn in actual life but the actual work will be done.
Can You Benefit From CBT?
“Cognitive behavioral therapy was developed individuals with severe depression.
Mental illnesses that react well to CBT include:
- Mood disorders like depression
- Anxiety disorders
- Phobias
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Substance abuse
Cognitive behavioral therapy are often utilized to treat afflictions like binge eating and other eating disorders, obesity, smoking, sleep problems, chronic pain, attention deficit disorder (ADD), panic attacks, and personality disorders.
One of the huge advantages of CBT is its ability to deal with distinct disorders in different age groups. A review of CBT use for eight studies involving 343 youngsters were looked at by OCD in children and youths. The researchers reduces the threat of OCD returning after treatment and found that CBT is an effective treatment for OCD. They also found that CBT combined with drugs is better for OCD than drugs alone.
CBT may operate by telephone. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that PTSD after cancer treatment with stem cell transplants may be offset by CBT phone therapy sessions. The researchers followed 89 folks, who have been divided into two groups. One group received standard follow-up phone calls as well as the other group received phone calls that contained CBT. After one year, the standard follow up group was 15 times more likely to have developed PTSD than the group
Ask your primary care physician to get a referral to a cognitive behavioral therapist in case you think there is a mental health problem that could benefit from CBT. Visit the National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, should you’d like to learn more about CBT.