About Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
I understand that private therapy is a significant investment of your time and resources.
All the more reason to use treatment interventions that have been shown to work!
Here is a brief introduction to CBT.
More detailed information can be found here.
It's the thought that counts!
Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a talking therapy that has been developed over the past 60 years. It has become the most popular therapy for working with common mental health problems within the NHS due to the strong evidence-base for its effectiveness and its practical approach.
CBT focuses on the links between thoughts (cognitions), emotions, physical experiences and behaviour. As the name implies, in CBT the main focus is on thinking and behaviour patterns.
How we see the world and think about our experiences is crucial to how we feel and what we do. Our perspectives may be shaped by our experiences, but sometimes these can become skewed and lead us down unhelpful paths, causing distress and difficulty. The good news is that there is always another way of making sense of things and exploring this can result in lasting change.
Practical & solution-focused
CBT focuses primarily on what is happening now to keep problems going. These are usually the things we can change, rather than some of the things that may have caused the difficulties in the first place, which often we cannot. Most people seek therapy to feel better and to be able to do things they may be struggling with. Therapy focuses on working towards agreed goals that are meaningful to you.
CBT takes a practical approach by seeking to break unhelpful cycles of thinking and behaviour that stop you being who you want to be and doing what you want to do. Through testing out new ways of thinking or acting and establishing more helpful patterns, therapy aims to provide you with tools that help both now and in the longer term. This will involve some agreed work between sessions, when you can try out new ways of doing things in the real world to ensure they stand up to the test.
