it’s all in your head
e x p l o r i n g c o g n i t i v e - b e h a v i o r a l t h e r a p y
Lately I’ve shared thoughts on various ways you can go about your day-to-day and make adjustments to feel more content, in control, [insert need here]. While these tips and tricks can be helpful for some, many people realize that there are deeper needs to address. While I am not an expert who has focused their entire career on one specific style or approach to therapy, I have had courses, trainings, supervision and thousands of hours of practice (you need literal thousands just to get licensed) as a clinician; thus, I’ll use some of my next posts to dive a little deeper into different potential aspects of therapy. I truly believe life and growth are not all this or that but a variety of approaches, theories and needs that work for and against one another to create a unique human experience. In reading this, I hope you can find a little nugget of truth or inkling of what you may want or need in your new or continued mental health journey!
what is it?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is rooted in the perspective that by noticing and adjusting unhelpful or maladaptive (many people will use the terms “negative” or “distorted” here) thoughts, you can find more helpful and growth-oriented mindsets. In doing so, you can experience more helpful and growth-promoting emotions. Kind of like “I think, therefore I am”… in that it is rooted in the idea that your thoughts impact your feelings and thus your actions. CBT techniques tend to focus on the here and now versus diving into your past. If a clinician uses an “eclectic blend”, that may indicate that they are comfortable with more psychoanalytic approaches as well as CBT approaches. Your best bet: just ask what they mean! This type of therapy is typically done with an individual therapist and is often seen as having a completion date (i.e. 6-20 sessions, depending on needs). This is usually the case when seeing someone in a more medical setting or who does strictly CBT. Many clinicians will have CBT influences and may not necessarily maintain a strict program or protocol. This is one of those great questions to ask when starting with a new therapist: “Do you set a limit to how many sessions we can meet?” or “How do you implement CBT therapy?”
the basics
CBT often uses a visual of a triangle to demonstrate the 3 basic components of this approach: thoughts, feelings and actions. Some therapists like to add in sensations to help people better connect that tight feeling in their chest or their sweaty palms as a cue to a feeling that is coming up in them, too.
Typically, you will explore ways to better notice your thoughts. Next, you’ll learn strategies that you will take home and practice, as homework or at home practice, is often seen as integral to success with CBT. This is where the “behavioral” part tends to come in. Behaviorism is a perspective that all behaviors are learned, therefore they can be unlearned. Sooo, you notice your unhelpful thoughts (often referred to as cognitive distortions) and then pull in behaviorism to use the strategies to slowly unlearn the sequence of events that typically follow the unhelpful thoughts so as to replace them with 1.) more helpful thoughts and 2.) more adaptive responses to meet your needs.
Naming your feelings helps connect all of these concepts and, as research seems to suggest, helps people move their feeling from the subconscious response parts of your brain up to your frontal lobe so you can actually process and make sense of it. If you’re someone who has difficulty understanding thoughts or emotions in general, no worries! - many therapists will take this into consideration and you can start by focusing on becoming more self-aware, either alongside or before you jump into any specific strategies. Again: you have the right to ask for exactly what you need! See below for some examples of techniques typically used as well as needs that can be met using this type of therapy.
possible techniques
Journaling - helps you track thoughts and feelings; can be directive or open-ended
SMART goals - setting specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-limited goals
Cognitive Restructuring - focuses on recalibrating cognitive distortions or unhelpful thoughts and/or negative core beliefs
Guided Discovery - working with your therapist to challenge assumptions you have about yourself
Self-Talk - noticing how you talk to yourself and renavigating or reframing these to be more kind and growth-based
can this work for me?
As with any technique, it is important for you to think about what feels best and most appropriate for where you are at in life. CBT is a therapy that often requires you to be fairly engaged and ready to adjust your thinking to be successful. That being said, many clients and clinicians will be open and understanding of taking the time to meet your where you are at so you can get comfortable and feel secure in change. Below is a very generalized list of needs people typically have when they’re seeking out CBT:
Anxiety
Phobias
Depression
Substance Use Disorders
Chronic Pain
Working through life transitions (new job, moving, break-up)
General life stress or relationship difficulties
links to some worksheets + infographs
- Cognitive Distortions blog from mindmypeelings.com - Click for link to infographh! or Click for link to blog post- Healthline often has great posts - in this one they have a infograph comparing different types of therapy and even more info on CBT- TherapistAid is another great tool - here is a link to their CBT section*As with all posts and recommendations, these are offered up in the context that it is a privilege to have access to therapy AND that it is important to note, especially with these worksheets, that they will often be most successful when used in tandem with some sort of specialized support or clinician. In this post, none of the links are promotional or affiliated.
Stay Cozy Out There,
E
Resources:
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2019, March 16). Cognitive behavioral therapy. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/about/pac-20384610
Psychology Today Staff. (n.d.). Cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cognitive-behavioral-therapy#what-conditions-can-cbt-treat
Raypole, C. (2023, March 10). What is cognitive behavioral therapy?. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-behavioral-therapy#effectiveness
