CBT In A Nutshell

Mental Health Matters

In this article, I am going to talk a little bit about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT for short.

I am not going to go into deep details on the subject. This will just be a brief, broad overview of what CBT is.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is a type of talk therapy.

Just for point of reference, talk therapy is also known as Psychotherapy.

The core of CBT is allowing you to notice, or be more aware of your negative thoughts.

Once you have more awareness of not only your negative thoughts but your core mental thoughts, you start working on how you can change those thoughts and respond to situations more effectively.

Who Is CBT Good For?

While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is more widely used with people who have a mental health disorder, anyone can benefit from the application of CBT in their lives.

The most common mental health disorders that CBT is used for are depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

That being said, there is a wide range of disorders that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is good at helping with.

What Is CBT Good For?

One of the great aspects of CBT is that it is faster at identifying specific issues and helping the person to cope with them.

CBT can help you manage various symptoms of different mental health disorders. When the practices are put into place and learned, they can also help in preventing a person from future relapse in symptoms.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will also help a person to cope with different stressful situations in life and manage different emotions that come with those situations.

It can also help in resolving conflicts and produce better communication between individuals.

There are many different ways that CBT can help a person in their day-to-day life when they are dealing with a mental health disorder such as depression or anxiety.

While it is a very effective treatment option, be sure to discuss with your doctor and/or therapist whether it will be best for you to use it as an augmentation to medication.

Just as a heads up, you may find yourself feeling uncomfortable during certain portions of the CBT methods.

This is only because part of the therapy may include exposing you to situations you are uncomfortable with or diving into painful emotions.

If you’re willing to face those situations and/or emotions I can say from experience that CBT is well worth at least exploring.

How To Get Started With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

I have had a little bit of experience with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy through the guidance of a therapist. Most of my experience though has come through self-teaching.

To teach myself Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I used the Mind Over Mood Workbook. It was a great way to start learning about CBT and how to apply the different practices.

I will say that it was not the easiest as I only had the book and my research capabilities. It would have been much easier with someone knowledgeable in the process to bounce questions off of.

That being said, it is doable if either you can’t afford a therapist or just don’t want to see a therapist.

If you do plan to search out a therapist to help you with the CBT process, make sure that you check their credentials and ask them if they are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Also know going in that you are going to have to, at some point, expose yourself to certain uncomfortable or painful emotions or situations that may be causing some roadblocks in your coping with a mental health disorder.

If you’re not good at talking about your problems, a good therapist will be able to direct the therapy and pull the information needed from you through questions.

That was one of the reasons I didn’t follow CBT with a therapist. I am not good at talking about my problems and how I’m feeling unless questioned. More often than not the therapist didn’t ask very many questions and I left feeling it had been a waste of time.

When you see your therapist for the first time, try to have a general idea of the specific issues you want them to work on with you.

Maybe, it’s your anxiety or social anxiety. Possibly it’s your depression, feeling useless or worthless, or maybe you are plagued with suicidal and death thoughts as I was and want a way to better cope with them.

If you’re suffering from PTSD, maybe there is a specific noise or situation that triggers your symptoms and you want to work on that.

Whatever the specific issue is, have a general idea before going in to see the therapist.

It may change over time, or through working with the therapist it might be something altogether different that is causing your problems than you initially thought.

How You Can Get The Most Out Of Your CBT Sessions

1. You will need to actively participate in the therapy. You will want to have certain stepping stones that you reach before moving forward to the next step in the process.

2. This one can be a little difficult at times, but you’re going to need to be honest and open with yourself, and if you’re seeing a therapist, with the therapist as well.

3. Stick with your scheduled time to work on CBT or if you’re seeing a therapist, don’t skip any appointments.

It is important to be consistent and not allow interruptions in the process.

4. One of the hardest things is to understand that you won’t see instant results.

Understand as well that in the beginning, you may actually start to feel worse. Don’t panic though as this is natural.

You are no longer shoving certain painful emotions aside, but are bringing them to the front, experiencing them, and understanding them.

You may also be exposing yourself to uncomfortable situations instead of avoiding them, and until you can cope in those situations, they won’t be comfortable at all.

5. Either your therapist or the workbook you are using, will give you homework. No matter how uncomfortable, make sure you are doing that homework.

Don’t let yourself put it off for a later time.

6. Lastly, after 4 or 5 sessions, if you find that it doesn’t seem to be helping you in any way whatsoever, bring it up with your therapist.

The therapist may have to approach things differently or change their approach. Don’t be afraid to tell them that it’s not working. It’s your session, your time, and your money.