Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a form of therapy used for the psychological treatment of common mental and anxiety disorders. Since the 1980’s, Cognitive Behavior Therapy or CBT, has been successfully used to treat individuals suffering from psychological problems, and assisting them in living healthy and fully functioning lives.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is just as the name implies, a form of therapy that is used to treat cognitive areas of an individual’s well being, and to change those cognitive areas in a way that will ultimately change an individual’s behavior.
The basis of this therapy is that underlying thoughts or thought processes, known as cognitions, are the source for dysfunctional or problematic behavior. By altering one’s cognitions, it is hoped through CBT that an individual’s behavior will also be altered.
CBT suggests that psychological impairment or distress is caused when an individual experiences distorted thoughts that affect their behavior. If for example an individual has an underlying fear or thought that squirrels will fall on them out of trees, they will avoid trees or walking near trees because they believe that this will increase the likelihood of a squirrel falling on top of them. CBT will help this individual by training them to rid themselves of this fear of squirrels falling, in the hopes that this will ultimately change their behavior, so that one can now successfully walk near trees without this fear or thought process.
CBT works to help people identify what the thought processes are that are creating fears that interfere with their daily lives. It also functions to make an individual aware of the behaviors that are resulting from these faulty thought processes. The ultimate task of CBT is to help an individual understand how the three elements of thoughts, behavior, and emotions relate with each other, and how these three elements are influenced by outside forces or earlier life events.
A therapist will work with an individual to assist them in coming to all of these realizations. Because many anxiety disorders are the result of a myriad of underlying fears, CBT has been shown to be very successful in the treatment of a wide range of anxiety disorders.
You must log in to post a comment.