5 Answers About Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Psychologists often treat mental complaints such as depression, addiction and phobias with cognitive behavioral therapy. What exactly is that for therapy? How does it work and what can you achieve with it? Here you will get all your answers. 1. What is cognitive behavioral therapy? "Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most researched, most used form of psychotherapy at the moment, the principle is simple: people get into trouble because they learn bad habits and they can relieve these habits (this is the behavioral side of CBT). Because they have bad habits, people also start to think and feel bad about themselves, increasing the likelihood that they continue to show their bad habits (this is the cognitive side). CGT addresses both the behavior and the sustained thoughts and feelings. 2. Which variants are there? "CBT was invented by two people at the same time: Aaron T. Beck and Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck called his therapy CBT, Ellis called it Rational Emotive Therapy or RET. In RET it is emphasized that it is not the events that our reactions and therefore also our problems, but the way we look at those events.In the 'Beckian' CBT the emphasis is slightly more on actively challenging obstructive thoughts and feelings in so-called behavioral experiments. Today, many variants of CBT are in circulation. With the well-known mindfulness-based CBT, negative thoughts and feelings are not challenged, but clients learn to let these thoughts and feelings be what they are without paying attention to them. The less well-known but popular treatment for Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) is a combination of CBT and classical psychoanalysis. In CBASP the emphasis in the beginning of treatment is strongly on experiences during youth, which are then translated into reactions and problems in the present tense. 3. How does it work? Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) consists primarily of detecting negative behavior and bad habits, but also of the thoughts and feelings that they maintain, by registering moments when a problem occurs. to do things differently and above all to be guided by other thoughts and feelings than they usually did. The latter happens in behavioral experiments. Clients search consciously for difficult situations in such experiments with the intention to investigate which thoughts and feelings are decisive and which other thoughts and feelings result in different behavior. 4. What can you achieve with CBT? CBT was designed to help people get rid of complaints, initially, treatment for depression was a problem, followed by anxiety and addiction, and CBT was soon working for all sorts of psychological problems, such as quitting smoking, panic symptoms and Spin phobia. There is no longer a psychological problem that is treated without CBT, and even people who are psychotic or who suffer from bipolar disorder (manic depression) can benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. In addition, CBT can help you get more out of yourself. The core of CBT is the detection of obstructive thoughts and feelings. It is good for everyone to know what they are. You can become a better manager by questioning obstructive thoughts and feelings. You can finally write that book or start doing that training, if you know how to remove your inner obstacles. By CBT you could realize what you already had almost no hope for. 5. Who is CGT suitable for? CBT was designed as a treatment for everyone and with all sorts of complaints. An objection that at first sounded sometimes is that CBT was too intellectual and therefore difficult to apply to people with limited intelligence. This claim was examined and rejected. We all have thoughts and feelings, and we can all learn to see that these thoughts and feelings maintain and strengthen our bad habits , and we can all learn to do what we want to do.