How Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help You
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) claims psychological problems are the result of learned patterns of thinking and behaving, and that..
Looking to Your Thoughts
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) claims psychological problems are the result of learned patterns of thinking and behaving, and that since our way of thinking has been learned, it can be unlearned. In CBT, clients work through challenges by analysing how their thoughts and perspective contribute to the problem.
Cognitive behavioural therapy involves:
- Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body
- Contemplating motivation to better understand others behaviour
- Identifying and facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them (exposure therapy)
- Using effective communication and conflict resolution techniques to cope with difficult situations
- Role playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others
- Learning to recognise cognitive distortions and work through them
Examples of cognitive distortions include: Labelling, Generalising, Jumping to Conclusions, Polarisation, Personalisation, Shoulds and Expectations, and Emotional Reasoning
Typically, cognitive behavioural therapists stay focused on the present rather than look deeply into what lead up to clients problems (like childhood trauma). The focus is on identifying how the thoughts and beliefs you have right here, right now, make you feel and deconstructing those which have proven harmful. The therapist works collaboratively with the client to understand the problem fully and helps them question their thoughts using different tools they can later use on their own.
Try it For Yourself
You can start counselling yourself by trying to take notice of when you are make a generalisation or exaggerate. This is often indicated by thinking or saying the words “always”, “never”, “no one” and “everyone”. Whenever you catch yourself thinking or saying these words, you want to pause and ask yourself if that’s really true and think of some exceptions so as to help you keep an open mind.
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