Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has gained in popularity because:
. it's a fast-acting
. evidence-based
. goal-oriented approach
. it often delivers results a few sessions
. it focuses on actionable solutions for current problems rather than long-term analysis of the past.
It’s widely recommended for treating anxiety, depression, stress and phobias to name but a few.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Why is it so popular?
I’m expanding on what’s above.
Evidence-Based Effectiveness: Extensive research from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge support its effectiveness for numerous mental health conditions, making it often referred to as the "gold standard" in psychotherapy.
Skill-Building Focus: It is based around giving you practical tools and techniques to identify, challenge, and replace negative thought patterns and behaviours. You’re taking control.
Short-Term and Goal-Oriented. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy usually doesn’t take long to make a difference. You can use CBT straight away, it’s not long-term, open-ended sessions.
Versatility. It can be adapted for children, adolescents, and adults, and is effective for treating anxiety, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Highly Recommended: It is a first-choice treatment in many healthcare systems, such as the NHS.
So, what is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
The core idea behind CBT is that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are closely linked.
When negative or distorted thoughts occur, they can lead to distressing emotions and unhealthy behaviours.
CBT gives you the skills to recognise these patterns and replace them with more realistic, balanced ways of thinking and acting.
In effect CBT gives you the skills to think more of yourself and not hurt yourself.
We’re rewiring your negative thinking in other words.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. What does this mean for you?
Quite simply that you can change your negative thinking and actions.
Here’s an example.
The event. You make a mistake at work.
So you think, “I’m terrible at my job.”
That makes you anxious or, possibly, sad.
You change your behaviour and avoid tasks or feel unmotivated.
Instead you could accept you made a mistake. Think, “Ok how do I do things differently?” Feel that it’s a chance to learn. Your new behaviour is that you now know you learned by your mistake and are motivated to push onwards and upwards
What CBT Is Used For?
CBT is widely used to treat:
- Anxiety disorders, especially phobias
- Depression by changing negative thought patterns and behaviours contributing to low mood.
- Panic attacks - helping you to understand the interaction between thoughts, bodily sensations, and behaviours to break the cycle of fear. It focuses on re-evaluating catastrophic thoughts (e.g., "I'm dying") and reducing avoidance behaviours.
- Social anxiety. CBT focuses on identifying and challenging negative thought patterns, reducing safety behaviours, and using exposure techniques to gradually face feared social situations, like dating, public speaking, work events, family gatherings, walking into a room full of strangers.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It helps you confront fears and break the cycle of obsessions and compulsions. It’s looking at you reducing your reliance on rituals and fostering tolerance for anxiety at a lower level.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is about processing traumatic memories so they don’t interfere with your daily life, for example, reducing avoidance behaviours, exposure, and grounding techniques.
- Stress and anger management. Challenging irrational, unhelpful thoughts (e.g., "This must be fair") and replacing them with more realistic, balanced perspectives. We start by looking at your triggers, teaching you how to remove yourself from frustrating situations to prevent explosive outbursts and taking a look at anger-inducing situations from a "third-person" perspective. Imagine looking in as an outsider.
How CBT works
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works by helping you identify and challenge negative, unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours.
It’s not overwhelming. You breaking everything down into manageable parts to change how you feel. It focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions to improve your state of mind.
CBT techniques and the therapy process.
In layman’s terms is a sort of seek, destroy and built back better.
The ‘seek’ bit is called cognitive restructuring. You identify and questioning irrational or negative thoughts.
The ‘destroy’ is behavioural activation. You break negative cycles, such as facing feared situations instead of avoiding them.
And the ‘build back better’ is working with me to set goals to make a better kinder version of you.
Along the way it’s a good idea to record your thoughts. This isn’t a linear process some things you’ll find easier that others, you might find obstacles in your way that need to be dealt with. Bring your notes/diary from between session to each meeting and we can assess your progress - even speed things up.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy benefits.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a highly effective, structured, and goal-oriented talking therapy. By having goals you have the sense of achievement as you smash them.
It also teaches resilience it hands you the ability to identify and reframe your harmful thought patterns and behaviours. It then gives you the skills to cope with your anxiety, depression, insomnia, and stress. Often giving you long-term benefits in a short timeframe.
CBT vs other therapies.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is great with dealing with the here and now. CBT is often considered the "gold standard" for anxiety and depression due to its strong evidence base and rapid, skill-building nature. Although it may not be suitable if you need deep, long-term exploration of a past trauma that’s been buried deep for years.
So what’s Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy?
If Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is seen as something that can deal with most metal challenges in a short space of time, adding hypnotherapy can - CAN - speed up the process even more and make a deeper and longer lasting impression.
How? I talk to your subconscious through hypnosis - that’s the deeper longer lasting version of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Interested? Feel free to get in touch
I’m James Thomas - The Gentle Mind - a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist.
I call myself The Gentle Mind because when we’re calm we make better decision about ourselves, which we can do when we’re hypnotised. To find out more email me at jamesthomas@thegentlemind.co.uk or call me on 07787563099.
