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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT Therapy is an evidence-based approach that helps patients identify and reveal negative or unhelpful thought or behavior patterns that get in the way of their wellbeing. While this approach seeks to help you identify the impact of your past, the focus is on solutions for improving your present and future.
The philosophy upon which CBT therapy is designed holds that your actions, thoughts, and emotions are inextricably linked to one another. What that means is that the way that you feel or think about something has a tangible effect on your behavior.
For example, suppose you are overwhelmed after a recent promotion, working over hours, and barely getting sleep. In that case, you’re likely to feel a lot of stress—this shifts your “lens” on life, and you might see situations differently or make choices you would not have made if you weren’t carrying so much stress around with you.
The good news is that these thoughts and behavior patterns can be influenced by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A cognitive behavioral therapist can help you learn how to reframe those thoughts so you can live your life more productively – and that’s just one of the many benefits of incorporating CBT therapy into your self-care routine.
When we are alone with our thoughts, it is easy to seek constant validation for our version of events; or evidence for why things are so bad. But when you consider the idea that your emotions and thoughts carry responsibility for how they make you feel and behave, you can start to see that you can change them.
By changing the way, you think about things. Cognitive behavioral therapy can alter how you look at certain events, people, or situations—effectively putting you in control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Positive thinking plays an essential role in redirecting your thoughts and actions. Sentiments of optimism, resilience, and gratitude are powerful tools that can provide an emotional cushion to facing new fears and opportunities.
When you are first born, you come into the world as just the beginning of what you’ll one day be. You’re a baby with a brain that is ready to collect information to start understanding the world around you. The first things you learn and know are the things around you—our childhood shapes the core beliefs that we carry with us, often well throughout adulthood.
Though these maps of beliefs can be hard to alter, it’s certainly not impossible. But to change your beliefs, you must first attribute them to the source—where did it come from?
Finding the root allows you to reframe something you assumed to be an unconscious thing—a belief, which CBT therapy turns into a conscious, understandable part of you—which in turn gives you control over that belief, allowing you to keep it or to change it.
Exploring the root of your fears through cognitive behavioral therapy will give you the ability to change the meaning associated with the fear and thus change your behavior. For example, if you had a negative experience in public that created a fear of social interactions, through CBT therapy, you can address this fear and give new meaning (the ability to meet new people, demonstrate your strengths, etc.) to public outings which in turn make you more likely to face the fear.
Your psychotherapist will guide you through the process of overcoming perceived negative experiences, giving them a new understanding that no longer burdens you.
Goal-setting skills can be used as a powerful tool to combat emotional and behavioral difficulties. Often incorporated in CBT therapy, establishing attainable goals creates a healthy, motivating goal to achieve by increasing confidence and clarifying how to meet your objectives.
Are you tired of negative thought patterns affecting your life, career, or friendships? Do you want tangible tools to change your present mindset?
denova Collaborative Healthcare has therapists specially trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy who can help you. Contact us today, or call us to make an appointment or learn more about our mental health options.
Improving lives, Transforming Healthcare™