What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an evidence based psychological treatment or “talking therapy” which is often recommended by GPs as part of a treatment plan for comment mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, OCD, sleep problems and acute stress disorder.
CBT differs from other talking therapies in the following ways. It is :-
Active - involving practice of skills and experiments as homework taskss
Highly structured
Goal orientated
Multi-focused - concerned with unhelpful thinking, feelings and behaviours
Collaborative
Based on a treatment rationale informed by Cognitive Theory
What happens in a CBT session?
The first few sessions of CBT are used to gather information to develop a hypothesis/idea (also known as a psychological formulation) and a treatment plan. This may involve completing some assessment questionnaires and talking about the origins of the problems to understand the factors or situations that have led to a problem or difficulty. The sessions then work actively with you on the treatment plan, exploring the thought processes that we all engage in, to identify, change and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns. How we understand our problems has an effect on how we cope with them. It is therefore important to find out exactly what you are thinking and identify the self-narrative that is in your head. Sometimes this involves you writing a diary record of your thoughts, and the feelings and behaviours that accompany them.
We know from research that our thinking is quite different in states of depression and anxiety. For example when we are depressed our thinking can be negative, hopeless and self-critical. Physical changes associated with depression often include slowing down, feeling tired or lethargic, avoiding things and sleeping a lot. By contrast when we are anxious our body speeds up, increased heart rate, heart pounding, tense muscles, increased sweating and breathlessness, thinking can become catastrophic, or all or nothing and we can often avoid anxiety provoking situations. Different problems need different approaches. Depending on the treatment plan, you may learn relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation to slow the body down (in the case of anxiety) and improve management of emotional responses. For depressed clients, some of the homework may include a focus on increasing your activity, by scheduling activities you enjoy, or get sense of achievement. There can be many factors that impact on your success in therapy, including your motivation to complete tasks outside of sessions as well as how collaborative and supportive our therapy relationship is.
For more information about CBT please see the BABCP website or the video on MIND
If CBT does not sound like the right approach for you there are other psychological therapy approaches available that may be more beneficial to you. These can be discussed during a free 15 minute consultation.
