What is CBT?
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is one of the most evidence-based therapies out there, and one of my favorites to use when working with clients (and on me, when I’m having a tough day!). It is helpful for a wide variety of struggles, including depression, anxiety, insomnia, OCD, and more. In a nutshell, CBT is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors all influence each other. They can influence each other in ways that make things worse, or in ways that make things better. Often, when people come to therapy, those things are influencing each other in negative ways and one of our goals is to help find ways to turn that around.
source: https://albanycounselingservices.com/2016/11/15/cognitive-triangle/
In the image to the right, you can see how these three parts (thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) all influence each other:
One example of this cycle working in a negative way is someone who is afraid of going on an airplane and therefore avoids them. The might have thoughts like “the plane is going to crash” or “this is too dangerous”, which leads to feelings of fear, which then leads to avoiding plane flights (behavior). And then avoiding plane flights can reinforce the thought that planes are dangerous and should be avoided.
An example of this working in a positive way is if the person who is afraid of planes were to adjust their thoughts to something like, “Planes scare me, but I know they are generally safe and I have things that help me cope with the anxiety I feel”. The person might then still feel some fear, but it likely is less than they would have felt in the first example. Maybe the fear is even low enough where they feel like they can take a plane ride (behavior). Then when they make it through the flight, some of the thoughts about planes being dangerous might still be there, but they are likely weaker than they were before the flight.
The idea of CBT is not to make feelings go away completely. Sometimes, this is possible -- in our airplane examples, it is possible that if the person keeps practicing, they can learn to take plane flights with no fear. But in life overall, we will continue to experience difficult thoughts and feelings. But if you can learn to adjust your thoughts, these thoughts and feelings can be less intense, and you might feel a bit more in control of them.
These are, of course, fairly simple examples, and any good therapist who uses CBT will understand that emotions can make this cycle difficult to implement in positive ways at times. But understanding the cycle on an intellectual level is a really great start, and gives you an idea of what you are working toward. For more information on CBT, what it can be used for, and how it is implemented, you can start by reading this article.
