CBT Therapy
Understanding Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Its Benefits
What is cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt)?
Cognitive behavioral therapy (or CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people change negative or unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. The basic idea is that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected (go figure!) – and by changing the way we think, we can change the way we feel and act.
CBT has been proven to be effective in treating a wide variety of issues including anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, eating disorders, chronic pain and illness, and other problem areas such as low self-esteem, relationship problems, anger management, and grief and bereavement.
The Founders and Effectiveness of This Evidenced-Based Approach
CBT was developed through the work of several pioneering psychologists and psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s including Aaron Beck (often called ‘the father of CBT’ and proposed that depression was caused by distorted negative thinking patterns and developed techniques to identify and modify these thought patterns.), Albert Ellis (who focused on identifying and changing irrational beliefs), Donald Meichenbaum (the developer of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), and Arnold Lazarus (who expanded on Beck’s work and helped establish CBT as a distinct therapeutic approach).
As CBT has been studied thoroughly over many decades and is a preferred treatment approach by insurance companies and mental health organizations alike, there is a wealth of research confirming its efficacy including numerous clinical trials, repeated large scale meta-analyses and systematic reviews, long-term outcome studies, effectiveness studies in real world settings, and neuroimaging studies.
In short, it is considered a “gold standard” and evidence-based treatment approach recommended by leading mental health organizations worldwide and evidence continues to grow with further studies.
"Change your thoughts and you change the world."
How CBT Works
CBT is a collaborative process between the client and therapist. While the therapist guides the client through the process, the client remains an active participant in their own treatment and recovery so that they develop a new, more balanced and adaptive way of thinking, feeling, and behaving, leading to improved mental health and well-being.
The Process Includes:
- Identifying Negative Thought Patterns à CBT helps clients become more aware of their own thought processes, particularly any negative, distorted, or irrational thoughts they may have. Clients learn to recognize unhelpful thinking patterns, such as catastrophizing, black and white thinking, all-or-nothing thinking, perfectionistic thinking, or jumping to conclusions.
- Challenging and Restructuring Thoughts à Once negative thought patterns are identified, the therapist and client work together to challenge the validity and accuracy of those thoughts. Clients learn techniques to reframe their thoughts in a more balanced, realistic, and helpful way.
- Altering Behaviors à CBT recognizes that our thoughts influence our behaviors, so it also focuses on changing behaviors that detract from our sense of wellbeing. Clients learn coping strategies and practice new, healthier behaviors to replace the old, unhelpful ones.
- Skill-Building à CBT is a skills-based approach, so clients are taught specific cognitive and behavioral strategies they can apply in their daily lives. This might include relaxation techniques, problem-solving skills, communication skills, and others.
- Homework and Practice à CBT often involves “homework” assignments where clients practice the skills they’ve learned between sessions. This reinforces the new thought patterns and behaviors, helping them become more automatic and ingrained.
“The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.”
The Unique Benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Due to its focus on skill building and short term, goal-oriented outcomes, CBT is a favorite with mental health organizations and insurance companies. Its highly focused nature can be quickly applied to every day life, which can contrast with therapies focusing more on exploration of the past or general insight.
Its collaborative approach with clear objectives can make it especially appealing for clients who prefer a more directive and solution-focused therapy and can increase the client’s sense of ownership and commitment to the therapeutic process.
Also due to its focused, goal-oriented approach, the short-term potential of it can be more feasible for those with busy schedules or financial limitations.
There are not many therapeutic approaches as well-researched and widely adopted as CBT. With a wealth of empirical evidence to support its efficacy across a multitude of mental health conditions, it’s no wonder it is so popular.
However, my commitment to transparency requires me to also shed light on the reality that CBT’s status as a favorite in the industry is not only linked to its impact on clients, but also to its impact on the bottom line for insurance companies. And those same insurance companies contribute to the growing research of this modality for this reason. The goal-oriented nature, and short-term potential, of CBT means less money insurance companies spend on mental health treatment. Therefore, this benefit can also be its downfall as insurance companies may opt to not cover treatments that may be more effective and appropriate for clients.
Speaking of which, let’s briefly touch on some limitations of this treatment approach as well as its collaborative potential…
The Limitations of CBT and It’s Collaborative Potential
CBT is an incredible resource for clients. Truly, it is. The evidence stands.
However, it’s important to understand that because CBT is a cognitive approach, it doesn’t address trauma stored in the body and isn’t always able to bypass emotional and physiological dysregulation. For some, its like trying to push a boulder uphill – difficult and treacherous.
That is why CBT can be most powerful when combined with other therapies that do address body-stored trauma and emotional and physiological regulation. In fact, from my experience, CBT (which does, in fact, acknowledge the mind-emotion-behavior connection), inherently makes space for other necessary modalities in order to increase its effectiveness. Therefore, in some situations, the emotion-body regulation concerns need to be addressed before cognitive alterations can take place.
If you’re interested in reading more about why this is the case, see the Why I Specialize in Somatic Therapy section in the Somatic Therapy page.
Why I Specialize in CBT
As someone who can struggle with unproductive thinking, CBT is distinctly helpful with addressing unhelpful thought patterns and limiting beliefs about oneself, one’s circumstances, and the world.
It’s amazing how a single thought can consume us, overtake us, and influence how we feel and show up in the world…even in ways we don’t want to!
Recent studies have indicated that humans, on average, experience 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, with younger people and those with higher levels of anxiety or depression tending to push into the higher number of daily thoughts.
This is why CBT is so powerful and effective – especially for problems and disorders related to anxiety and depression. If we can change the quality of all those thousands of thoughts, we can change our inner landscape and have more control over the quality of our own existence.
And if we can change how we think, we can make room for more changes that improve our overall wellbeing.
Let’s Work Together to Help Your Thoughts Help You
CBT has been so helpful for me and many of my clients. If you’re interested in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well, click the link below to schedule a free 20-minute consultation to see how I may be able to help you.
"It's only a thought and a thought can be changed."
