Cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT is a common name for a number of therapies designed to help with conditions like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or drug abuse. CBT has been created based on two earlier kinds of psychotherapy: the cognitive therapy, developed to change people’s thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and expectations, and the behavioural therapy – also called behaviourism, developed to change people’s actions. A. Beck – an American psychotherapist helped to develop CBT and believed that the way we think about a situation affects how we act. On the other hand, our actions affect the way we think and feel. This means what needs to be changed are both thinking and behaviour at the same time. And this is what we call cognitive behavioural therapy.
The changes will help you to feel better. The difference to other talking treatments, is that CBT focuses on solving problems and difficulties here and now. It is not focusing on the causes of the distress and symptoms in the past, it looks for ways and actions to get your state of mind better now. Cognitive behavioural therapy has been proven to help with people with many different types of problems. These include social anxiety, depression, panic attacks, social phobia, agoraphobia, stress, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and psychosis. CBT will also help with anger management, low self esteen or physical health problems like pain or fatigue.
Cognitive behavioural therapy can aid in making sense of overwhelming problems as they get broken down into smaller pieces. This way it is easier to see how they are linked and how they affect you. These pieces are: a situation – a problem, event or difficult situation, followed by thoughts, emotions, actions, physical feelings. Each and every one of these areas can affect the others. The way you are thinking about a problem affects how you feel physically and emotionally. It can also alter what you do about it. There are two ways of reacting to most situations – helpful and unhelpful, depending on how you think about them.
Cognitive behavioural therapy can be applied individually or to a group of sufferers. The therapy can also be applied by using a self-help book or a computer programme. There are two computer programmes approved by the NHS, that are used in England and Wales. The “Fear Fighter” is the one that is used for people with phobias and panic attacks. The other one is “Beating the Blues” and it is for people with mild to moderate depression.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the best known to date and most effective treatments for conditions like anxiety and depression. It is the most effective psychological treatment for moderate and severe depression and as effective as antidepressants for many types of depression. Cognitive behavioural therapy is not for everyone, another type of talking treatment may work better for you, and it may be slightly more effective than antidepressants in treating anxiety. For severe depressions, cognitive behavioural therapy has to be used together with antidepressant medication. When the sufferer is very low, it may be hard to change the way of thinking until the antidepressants have started to make him/her feel better. Tranquillizers must not be used as a long-term treatment for anxiety. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a lot better option.
What needs to be underlined here is that the cognitive behavioural therapy is not a quick fix. The therapist is as a personal trainer who advises and encourages – but cannot do it for you. If you are feeling down, it will be very difficult to concentrate and get motivated. To overcome anxiety, you need to confront it. This may lead you to feel more anxious for a short time. A good therapist will pace your sessions. You would decide what you do together, so you are in control. A course may last from 6 weeks to 6 months. All depends on the type of the problem and how it is working for you.
