Cognitive Behavioural Therapy "aka CBT" is a form of Psychological Treatment that is Evidence-Based and Effective for managing many mental health issues such as Anxiety Disorders, Depression, Eating Disorders, PND, and personal issues such as low self worth and self esteem, poor body image, and difficulties relating to others.
In it's simplest form CBT works on the idea that the way we "talk to ourselves" and interpret events happening to us and around us, can have a profound impact on our mood, how we see ourselves and others, our relationships, our sense of future, and our overall mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Imagine if you spent most of your day in fear based, negative thoughts? How do you think this might make you feel? Pretty rubbish right!
In Individuals with poor mental health and low self esteem, it is very common to think negatively most of the time, AND these thoughts feel very certain and real. When we suffer from low self esteem and poor mental health it can be very difficult to believe that the negative, fearful thoughts we are experiencing are NOT realistic or in proportion to the situation we are experiencing.
Now imagine if you spent most of your day in neutral and positive thoughts...how do you think this might make you feel?
CBT can help change negative and fear based thinking in a number of ways by:
Helping you identify what persons, situations, events, trigger these negative and anxious thoughts to begin with, and why?
Helping you identify what you are feeling and thinking about and why? AND help you sit with and experience these emotions and thoughts without trying to manage or "get rid of them" via unhelpful behaviours. If you are stuck in unhelpful behaviours to cope, CBT can help with this too!
Helping you identify faulty thoughts and any thinking errors you may be making that may be contributing to you feeling distressed.
Helping you challenge and reframe negative and anxious thoughts and thinking errors. This process can feel hard to do but with practice and once mastered can be an absolute game changer in reducing the frequency and severity of distress that you feel day to day. It can also help in significantly improving your self esteem, relationships, and overall mental health and wellbeing.
There are lots of "tools" in the CBT toolkit that a therapist trained and skilled in delivering CBT can teach you.
I also love CBT in that it not only helps you identify and challenge and reframe unhelpful thinking patterns that are causing your distress, it also helps you identify and problem solve REAL issues in your life that may be contributing to your distress (very important to be able to distinguish if your source of distress is coming from within or external to you, or a combination of both!). Sometimes our negative thoughts are in proportion to and a direct response to an abnormal and adverse event happening in our life. (This requires a different approach in therapy).
If you are curious to learn more about CBT and how it can improve your mental health, we love questions. Email or phone us to let us know your treatment needs and how we can help.
Vanessa
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