Junst what is CBT and how does it work?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) combines two very effective kinds of psychotherapy - Cognitive Therapy and Behavioural Therapy.

Behavioural Therapy helps you weaken the associations between troublesome situations and your habitual reactions to them. Reactions such as fear, depression or rage, and self-defeating or self-damaging behaviour have no real positive outcome. Behavioural Therapy teaches you how to calm your mind and body, so you can feel better, think more clearly, and make better, more effective decisions.

Cognitive Therapy teaches you how certain thinking patterns are causing your symptoms - by giving you a distorted picture of what's going on in your life, and making you feel anxious, depressed or angry for no good reason, or provoking you into ill-chosen actions, when more appropriate thoughts, feelings and actions help in producing a more positive and productive outcome.

Once in therapy, you will have the facility to contact your therapist outside normal consultations. This is normally to assist clients to deal with emergencies or any crisis but this facility should respect the therapist and their right to quality time. Therefore, calls should only be made at appropriate times and be kept as short as possible.

CBT is an “Active” therapy

In CBT, your therapist takes an active part in solving your problems. He or she does not settle for just nodding wisely while you carry the whole burden of finding the answers you came to therapy for. In many ways CBT is comparable to education, coaching or tutoring. Under expert guidance, as a CBT client you will share in setting treatment goals and in deciding which techniques work best for you personally.

CBT is Structured and Focussed

CBT provides clear structure and focus to treatment. Unlike therapies that easily drift off into interesting but unproductive side trips, CBT sticks to the point and changes course only when there are sound reasons for doing so.

As a CBT client, you will most likely take on valuable “homework” projects to speed your progress. These assignments extend and multiply the results of the work done in your therapist's office. You may also receive take-home readings and other materials tailored to your own individual needs to help you continue to forge ahead between sessions.