What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Psychotherapy that uses cognitive-behavioral techniques seeks to help people learn new skills for dealing with problematic emotions, actions, and perceptions. Behavioral treatment, cognitive therapy, and combined behavioral and cognitive therapy are all called by this name. Several diseases, including personality, anxiety, mood, eating, substance addiction, and psychotic disorders, have been shown to benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychological orders can be addressed using technique-driven, short, and time-limited therapies when treatment is manualized.

 

How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Works

The methods are frequently adopted for use in private counseling sessions. Whether a therapist or researcher prefers cognitive or behavioral approaches, or a mix of the two techniques, is entirely up to them. Nowadays, all three methods are in use. Behavioral-cognitive therapy evolved from a fusion of these two approaches. Both treatments have their distinctions, but they both focus on how to reduce symptoms.

 

Cognitive-behavioral therapy has been evaluated, and many people now believe it is more successful than psychodynamic therapies and other techniques of treating mental health issues. Mental health issues such as PTSD, OCD, bulimia, severe depression, and the neurological illness chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis are among those conditions that benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy above alternative treatments. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has its origins in several ancient philosophical systems, including Stoicism. Modern CBT may be traced back to the development of behavioral therapy in the 1920s, cognitive therapy in the 1960s, and their subsequent fusion. Mary Cover Jones’s work on helping youngsters overcome their anxieties sparked the first behavioral therapy techniques in the early ’20s.

 

Early behavioral methods were effective in treating neurotic illnesses. However, this was not the case with depression. Due to the “cognitive revolution,” behavioral treatment was also losing favor. This eventually led to the establishment of cognitive therapy in the 1960s by Aaron T. Beck. Arnold A. Lazarus created the first version of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the late 1950s and early 1970s. Thanks to their work, both cognitive and behavioral treatments were integrated by David M. Clark in the United Kingdom and David H. Barlow in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. As described above, among the several systems that make up cognitive behavioral therapy are rational emotive behavior therapy, multimodal treatment, and cognitive therapy. CBT definition is one of the most challenging tasks to do. The specific therapy procedures vary amongst CBT approaches based on the problem concerns being addressed. 

CBT Techniques Typically Revolve Around the Following

• Writing down your thoughts and feelings about significant occurrences in your life in a journal.
• Inquiring into and evaluating assumptions, ideas, and assessments that may be unrealistic or harmful.
• Gradually confronting activities that may have been avoided.
• The process of experimenting with different methods of acting and responding.
• Mindfulness and relaxation exercises are widespread.

Bipolar Disorder

Treatments for illnesses like bipolar disorder generally include mood-stabilizing medicines as well as other treatments. While medication and therapy are used to treat schizophrenia, the value of cognitive-behavioral therapy is widely recognized. The process of integrating cognitive behavioral therapy into a patient’s daily routine generally necessitates patience. However, even when they know when and where their mental processes go astray, it usually takes a lot of concentrated effort to switch to a more rational and adaptive cognitive-affective-behavioral approach or habit. 

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy May Be Used to Treat a Wide Range of Disorders

 

• Anxiety conditions (obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia or social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder)

• Anxiety and depression (clinical depression, major depressive disorder, psychiatric symptoms)

• Irritability to sleep (including being more effective than the drug Zopiclone)

• Mental illness that’s beyond normal recovery (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression)

• Adolescents and children (major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, trauma, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms)

• Flushing out (to help them overcome anxiety, avoidance behaviors, and negative thoughts about themselves)

 

A goal-oriented, methodical approach is used in cognitive behavioral therapy to teach patients new skills for dealing with problematic emotions, actions, and thoughts. A growing body of data shows that cognitive-behavioral therapy is beneficial in treating a wide range of disorders, including OCD, GAD, MDD, and schizophrenia, as well as anxiety and hostile self-perception. This treatment has had great success, making it one of the most critical tools researchers and therapists have today for treating mental illnesses.

CBT Specialists Are Ready to Help

 

The Sands Treatment Center in Pompano Beach, FL stands ready to help you now. 

Call 844-200-2509 or contact us here.