Table of Contents
What is cognitive therapy in simple terms?
The focus of this therapy is on how you are thinking, behaving, and communicating today rather than on your early childhood experiences. The therapist assists the patient in identifying specific distortions (using cognitive assessment) and biases in thinking and provides guidance on how to change this thinking. CBT combines cognitive therapy and behaviour therapy CBT focuses on changing unhelpful or unhealthy thoughts and behaviours. It is a combination of 2 therapies: ‘cognitive therapy’ and ‘behaviour therapy’. The basis of both these techniques is that healthy thoughts lead to healthy feelings and behaviours. 2. In some cases cognitive behavior therapy stresses the therapy technique over the relationship between therapist and patient. If you are an individual who is sensitive, emotional, and desires rapport with your therapist, CBT may not deliver in some cases. A type of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for overcoming overthinking and recognizing cognitive errors. “It helps one learn to first identify the errors, then to reframe the thinking in more logical and balanced ways,” says Duke. Thus, while there is good evidence for the efficacy of CBT in children aged 8 and older (Kendall et al., 2004), there is presently only one empirically validated psychosocial treatment outcome study for anxious preschool and early school aged children (Monga et al., 2009).
What is cognitive therapy used for?
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave. It’s most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression, but can be useful for other mental and physical health problems. CBT is one of the most effective forms of therapy for anxiety. It can help treat many types of anxiety, such as panic disorder, social anxiety, and phobias. Research shows that CBT is the most effective form of treatment for those coping with depression and anxiety. CBT alone is 50-75% effective for overcoming depression and anxiety after 5 – 15 modules. Many studies have found that self-directed CBT can be very effective. Two reviews that each included over 30 studies (see references below) found that self-help treatment significantly reduced both anxiety and depression, especially when the treatments used CBT techniques. 6 or 12 to 24 sessions of CBT therapy may be enough to successfully treat a presentation of moderate anxiety. Some people may need a bit longer, for instance where symptoms have been contained in the background for some years prior to treatment. Studies have shown that cognitive therapy is an effective treatment for depression and is comparable in effectiveness to antidepressants and interpersonal or psychodynamic therapy. The combination of cognitive therapy and antidepressants has been shown to effectively manage severe or chronic depression.
Why cognitive therapy is the best?
CBT is effective because it has the capacity to engage even the most serious problems. Therapists using CBT as a primary method for treating their clients report success with highly complex disorders like PTSD, specific phobias, generalized anxiety, social anxiety disorder, depressive disorder and many more. In summary, because of its clear research support, CBT dominates the international guidelines for psychosocial treatments, making it a first-line treatment for many disorders, as noted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidelines2 and American Psychological Association. Some of the disadvantages of CBT to consider include: you need to commit yourself to the process to get the most from it – a therapist can help and advise you, but they need your cooperation. attending regular CBT sessions and carrying out any extra work between sessions can take up a lot of your time. CBT instills the notion that your faulty or irrational thought patterns are responsible for maladaptive behavior and mental health problems. If one accepts this premise, then some practitioners may dismiss the other factors which play a part in mental illness such as genetics and biology.