Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a way to deal with real-life obstacles and achieve meaningful change. It’s a type of counseling, or therapy, that helps people see the link between their thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions.
A basic assumption of CBT is that what happens in life is not what causes you to feel strong emotions—such as sadness, anxiety or anger—or to act in ways that go along with those emotions. Rather, it’s your thoughts about what happens that really drive your feelings and behaviors.
For example, say you go out to dinner with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. Everything goes wrong—the service is slow, the food is lousy and the music is too loud. You spend the whole time thinking “This is terrible! I can’t believe how badly it’s turning out.” In fact, you’re so preoccupied with the problems that you miss a lot of what your friend has to say.
Meanwhile, your friend finds it all unfortunate, but chooses to focus on how nice it is to see you again and catch up on your life.
How would you feel? Frustrated? Angry? Upset? Probably very different from how your friend feels. You both just went through the same experience, but the way you perceived it made a big difference.
How does CBT work?
A skilled CBT therapist can help you become more aware of the links between your thoughts, emotions and actions. You might also gain insight into how it’s all driven by your underlying beliefs. These include your rules, attitudes and assumptions about yourself, others and the world. Once you start to define your thoughts and beliefs, you can learn ways to address them to better suit your goals.
Your problems won’t all be solved, but you might gain tools to help you manage your moods and behaviors. The ultimate goal of CBT is for you to become your own therapist.
Thanks for visiting my blog. Please come back from time to time for more notes on CBT, including thoughts on how CBT can apply to depression, anxiety and anger.
In the meantime, here's a good article that highlights some of the main features of CBT.
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I'd be surprised if someone wanted CBT treatment just to cope with an unfortunate choice of restaurant. CBT is mainly for much more serious things. I know you were only using that as an example, but I wonder if such a lightweight example gives the right impression.
ReplyDeleteAlso, CBT is not really about what people normally think of as their 'thoughts'. Beck's discovery was a very particular kind of thought that he called automatic or autonomic. I'm sure you'll get around to explaining that as you develop this blog.
I'll be following with interest!
Thanks so much for your comments. I agree completely that a bad restaurant experience would not be a reason to seek therapy (maybe a good restaurant guidebook, but not therapy). Of course, if the type of thinking described in the example was a regular occurrence for someone, then it could be indicative of something more serious to which CBT could be applied.
ReplyDeleteThanks also for bringing up automatic thoughts. I do plan to post on those soon. Take care. -Michael