CBT - Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

What is CBT?

It is a way of talking about:

  • how you think about yourself, the world and other people

  • how what you do affects your thoughts and feelings.

CBT can help you to change how you think ('Cognitive') and what you do ('Behaviour'). These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the 'here and now' problems and difficulties. Instead of focusing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.

 

How does it work?

CBT can help you to make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. This makes it easier to see how they are connected and how they affect you. These parts are:

  • A Situation - a problem, event or difficult situation


From this can follow:

  • Thoughts

  • Emotions

  • Physical feelings

  • Actions

 

Each of these areas can affect the others. How you think about a problem can affect how you feel physically and emotionally. It can also alter what you do about it. There are helpful and unhelpful ways of reacting to most situations, depending on how you think about them. 

 

 Situation:

You've had a bad day, feel fed up, so go out shopping. As you walk down the road, someone you know walks by and, apparently, ignores you.

 

Unhelpful

Helpful

Thoughts:

He/she ignored me - they don't like me

He/she looks a bit wrapped up in themselves - I wonder if there's something wrong?

Emotional:
Feelings

Low, sad and rejected

Concerned for the other person

Physical:

Stomach cramps, low energy, feel sick

None - feel comfortable

Action:

Go home and avoid them

Get in touch to make sure they're OK

 

The same situation has led to two very different results, depending on how you thought about the situation. How you think has affected how you felt and what you did. In the example in the left hand column, you've jumped to a conclusion without very much evidence for it - and this matters, because it's led to:

  • a number of uncomfortable feelings

  • an unhelpful behaviour

If you go home feeling depressed, you'll probably brood on what has happened and feel worse. If you get in touch with the other person, there's a good chance you'll feel better about yourself. If you don't, you won't have the chance to correct any misunderstandings about what they think of you - and you will probably feel worse. This is a simplified way of looking at what happens.  

CBT can help you to break this vicious circle of altered thinking, feelings and behaviour. When you see the parts of the sequence clearly, you can change them - and so change the way you feel. CBT aims to get you to a point where you can 'do it yourself', and work out your own ways of tackling these problems.

 

  • CBT appointments are available Monday and Tuesday evenings.