One of the most popular forms of psychotherapy treatments used to help those with anxiety problems is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. It teaches people to better understand how they act due to their thoughts and feelings. It has been used to help those that suffer with such conditions as addiction, phobias, anxiety and depression. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a short term therapy that teaches people how to change specific behaviors or unsettling thought patterns. Below is an explanation of the 3 main areas that are addressed in therapy.
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- COGNITIVE – This is the belief or thinking process in which the patient learns to change their habits as well as their thinking patterns. The patient is taught or conditioned to act and think differently about the situation that is causing them distress. They will learn to react differently which allows them to have a different outcome when faced with difficult situations.There are several techniques and methods that are used to help people accomplish this. Each person needs but a few methods that work best for them and then they can apply those methods to various situations. Some of the more common types of techniques used are as follows:
- Slowing down which uses methods of slow talking and slow walking
- Stopping ANTs or automatic negative thinking
- Incorporating self statements which are both helpful and rational. By doing these over and over they will become permanent thoughts that happen automatically.
- Acceptance paradox. This shows a person how they keep negative thoughts active and how they can stop them.
- Keep going forward with the self statements
- Learning which voices are the best to listen to and what you should take as truths or lies
- Teaching how to be more precisely focused with light determination
Other areas that are addressed are those of anger, frustrations, being a perfectionist and how we see things in the world.
- BEHAVIORAL – Behavioral is how we act or what we do. This is the part of therapy that teaches the patient about real life situations. It looks at how they react to things when they get anxious or depressed. This part of therapy goes hand in hand with the cognitive part of therapy and is either done in conjunction with or just after the cognitive therapy. It teaches patients different ways and useful skills to handle real life situations. This is very important to those that suffer with anxiety disorders and it is very helpful in personalized treatments for other patients as well.
- EMOTIONAL – This focuses on different strategies for the patient such as strength, relaxation, power and being peaceful. People need some way to relax when they find themselves in a difficult situation. This teaches them to focus on being calm and at peace when they need to de-stress. It helps the patient to get more out of therapy as they keep their mind calm and relaxed.In the emotional part of CBT the patient learns to remain calm and quiet and as they master this they will find that their anxieties or fears become less and less. They learn to find inner peace and to be healthy and to heal themselve
Cognitive restructuring is a wonderful and effective human science if written and implemented correctly. It has proven to go deep to address the “disease” and not just the many manifested symptoms such as anger, blaming, and self-justification.