What is CBT – what it does to you?
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a talk therapy that is used to treat various types of mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, stress and addiction.
What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy?
CBT focuses on helping you change your way of thinking. Thinking affects all parts of your being. Negative thought patterns affect the behaviour and the way you interpret things around you.
CBT also tackles daily life challenges and ways to overcome them. The practice of CBT relies on you being able to open up about your thoughts and emotions with the psychotherapist. The duration of therapy depends on what issues afflict you, which ones you wish to address, your current condition, and the many symptoms that you might be experiencing. The success of CBT lies in you and your psychotherapist’s collaborative effort to use CBT tools to reshape your thinking, beliefs and mental habits.
What CBT does to you?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy focuses on addressing specific types of mental based issues that you may be struggling with. CBT highlights the need to identify, understand and change the way you look and think about things. It also allows you to become more aware of yourself and your relationship with others. Perception defines emotions and feelings. If someone’s perception is blinded or misguided, strong emotions and undesirable behaviour may manifest. Changing negative perceptions involves learning good behaviour and also unlearning bad habits. In that way, you can rationalise your thoughts and easily change undesirable behaviour. During CBT, your brain will learn how to distinguish good and bad behaviour leading to change and reform.
It is your brain that dictates how to behave, not CBT. The role of CBT, at this point, is to guide you on how you can improve your mindset. CBT can rewind a negative mindset to a positive one making you feel better about yourself.
Moreover, there are other techniques that are used in CBT, which can also have a positive effect on your mental patterns and behaviour.
- Tracking Behavior Dysfunction – Look back into your past life experiences and think of some instances that may have been the root of the problem.
- Face Your Fears – Avoiding the problem can make it worse. Exposure therapy is a good example.
- Divert Your Attention – Find things to do. Get involved in other activities as a way of diverting your attention. Keep yourself busy in so many positive things in life.
- Do Not Procrastinate – Procrastination will lead to cramming and stress, which affects how you perceive things in the environment. Learn to prioritise and manage your time.
- Develop Skills – Develop new skills that can be useful in your life. Try something new. It refreshes and creates new neurons in your brain.
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