Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

THE MODIFICATION TREATMENT OF UNHELPFUL THOUGHTS, ASSUMPTIONS, BELIEFS AND BEHAVIOURS.

CBT Therapy looks at how you think about yourself and the affect this has on your behaviour and emotion when interacting with the world and people around you. CBT is widely accepted as an evidence and empirically based, cost-effective psychotherapy for many disorders and psychological problems. It is suitable for adults and young people. CBT can help you to change how you think and what you do. These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the "here and now" problems and difficulties. Instead of focusing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind in the present. CBT can help you to make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller chunks. This makes it easier to see how they are connected and how they affect you. This process starts with focusing on a particular problematic situation and moves on to identify the thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and actions that can follow from that situation.  Each of these areas can interact with one another. How you think about a problem can affect how you feel physically and emotionally. It can also alter what you do about it. 

The particular therapeutic techniques vary depending on the needs of the client, but commonly include :

Keeping a diary of significant events and associated feelings, thoughts and behaviours

Questioning and testing thoughts, assumptions, evaluations and beliefs that might be unhelpful and unrealistic

Gradually facing activities which may have been avoided and trying out new ways of behaving and reacting

Relaxation and distraction techniques are also commonly included