What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on the understanding that human beings can perceive in distorted (anxiety causing) ways. These distorted perceptions can create negative feelings and thoughts about the World, the Self, and Other People leaving us feeling anxious, angry, and depressed. 

Using CBT, we identify the thoughts and feelings that are causing these emotional disturbances and create alternative rational perspectives based on evidence. CBT recognises that just because you feel something is true, it doesn't necessarily mean that it IS true. When you think or feel hurtful things and then believe them yourself, you become emotionally disturbed. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy arms you with a rational assessment of a situation so that you are much better placed to dispute negative beliefs, thoughts, and feelings when they arise. Over time you learn to perceive the World, Self and Others in a much more positive way, thus reducing emotional disturbance, and creating greater wellbeing. 

More about CBT

If you'd like to take an in-depth look at what CBT is all about please click here. Otherwise read on for the brief description.

The Insights  

Paraphrased, Albert  Ellis’s insights (part of the foundation of CBT) state the following:

Insight 1 – How you feel is mainly determined by the way you think. 

Insight 2 – You become distressed when you endorse your own irrational beliefs .

Insight 3 – Be kind to yourself. You, like many people, can think irrationally so don’t judge yourself harshly .

Insight 4 – You need to make a sustained effort to recognise and challenge your irrational thoughts.

The Therapy

As with all good therapy, CBT is goal oriented, reflective, methodical, evidence-based, and time-limited. In plain English this means we want to see the results and we want to reflect as we go on each stage of the progression towards wellness and understanding. You can think of it as moving methodically towards symptom resolution in stages of understanding and application. CBT is very much a learning and brain re-training process. A usual treatment length is between 6-15 sessions and a minimum commitment of 6 sessions is required simply because CBT is NOT a quick fix. CBT is a learning process. The structure as a minimum takes that long to deliver. 

About me and CBT  

It should be noted that I am primarily a hypnotherapist as opposed to a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. However, I have been using the principles of CBT in the consulting room for many years. I recently undertook formal CBT training receiving my externally accredited qualification (to NVQ4 level) in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy in March 2008 and am pleased to offer either "pure" CBT (no hypnotherapy involved) or Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBT/Hypnotherapy combined). If you would like some help with a difficulty, please contact me to arrange an appointment. 

More on CBT available here.