What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT is a type of psychotherapy that helps people understand how their problems developed and are maintained by examining how they automatically think and behave in response to different events. Therapy focusses on increasing awareness of ones thoughts, understanding how this affects their emotions and leads to unhelpful behaviours. It is a collaborative therapy, which means the therapist and client work together to come to an understanding of how the person's problems began and continue and how the client can work to overcome their problems. CBT is an evidence-based treatment for anxiety and mood disorders.
CBT is based on the premise that it is not events alone that causes our distress, but rather our distress is influenced by how we interpret the situation. Take a look at the example below of how the same event can evoke different reactions in different people.
HOW THINKING AFFECTS YOUR MOOD, BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY AND YOUR LIFE!
MR SAD came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “Oh no” he thought, “this is terrible, I’ll stink of dog pooh, why does this always happen to me? It’s always the same, this is dreadful, it’s just not fair. I can tell it’s going to be one of those days where everything goes wrong. I don’t know why I bother”. All his enthusiasm for the day (which wasn’t much to start with) drained away and he got a sick feeling of apprehension in his tummy. He was fed up and discouraged he trudged to the station so slowly that he missed his train, was late for work and got the sack.
MR ANXIOUS came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “Oh no” he thought, “this is terrible, everybody will notice, they’ll all be looking at me and laughing. Even if I wipe it off I’ll smell. AND I’ll be carrying disease into the office. Somebody could catch a disease and it would be all my fault.” He broke out into a sweat at the thought of that lovely girl in accounts becoming sick and dying, he panted and trembled. Mr Anxious was so worried he had to go back to his house to clean his shoes properly. He spent so much time doing this that he missed his train was late for work and got the sack.
MR ANGRY came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “**!!@!@** @*!! this is disgraceful!” he thought, “People shouldn’t be allowed to let their dreadful animals foul the pavement. There should be a law against it. It’s not right, they should be strung up, if I saw that dog owner I’d give him what for, I’d throttle him, and if he got nasty I’d punch his lights out”. He got so stressed out and carried away with his fantasies of punishing evil dog owners that when he got to work he shouted at his secretary, made her cry and got the sack.
MR HAPPY came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. He stopped, looked down at the mess and thought “Good thing I am wearing shoes today”. J
As you can see, we can have different reactions at different times to the same event. CBT helps people become more aware of their automatic thinking styles and instinctive reactions and through this awareness one can learn to be more objective and evaluative in their response to the automatic thoughts, thus breaking a negative spiral of negative thoughts, negative feelings and unhelpful behaviours.
CBT is based on the premise that it is not events alone that causes our distress, but rather our distress is influenced by how we interpret the situation. Take a look at the example below of how the same event can evoke different reactions in different people.
HOW THINKING AFFECTS YOUR MOOD, BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY AND YOUR LIFE!
MR SAD came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “Oh no” he thought, “this is terrible, I’ll stink of dog pooh, why does this always happen to me? It’s always the same, this is dreadful, it’s just not fair. I can tell it’s going to be one of those days where everything goes wrong. I don’t know why I bother”. All his enthusiasm for the day (which wasn’t much to start with) drained away and he got a sick feeling of apprehension in his tummy. He was fed up and discouraged he trudged to the station so slowly that he missed his train, was late for work and got the sack.
MR ANXIOUS came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “Oh no” he thought, “this is terrible, everybody will notice, they’ll all be looking at me and laughing. Even if I wipe it off I’ll smell. AND I’ll be carrying disease into the office. Somebody could catch a disease and it would be all my fault.” He broke out into a sweat at the thought of that lovely girl in accounts becoming sick and dying, he panted and trembled. Mr Anxious was so worried he had to go back to his house to clean his shoes properly. He spent so much time doing this that he missed his train was late for work and got the sack.
MR ANGRY came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. “**!!@!@** @*!! this is disgraceful!” he thought, “People shouldn’t be allowed to let their dreadful animals foul the pavement. There should be a law against it. It’s not right, they should be strung up, if I saw that dog owner I’d give him what for, I’d throttle him, and if he got nasty I’d punch his lights out”. He got so stressed out and carried away with his fantasies of punishing evil dog owners that when he got to work he shouted at his secretary, made her cry and got the sack.
MR HAPPY came out of his house one morning on the way to work. He was in a hurry and did not see the pile of dog pooh on the pavement. He stopped, looked down at the mess and thought “Good thing I am wearing shoes today”. J
As you can see, we can have different reactions at different times to the same event. CBT helps people become more aware of their automatic thinking styles and instinctive reactions and through this awareness one can learn to be more objective and evaluative in their response to the automatic thoughts, thus breaking a negative spiral of negative thoughts, negative feelings and unhelpful behaviours.
