What is CBT

Explaining CBT

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy explained

CBT is an evidence-based treatment for various disorders such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome and OCD and more.

The skills you learn in CBT are useful, practical and helpful strategies that can be incorporated into everyday life to help you cope better with future stresses and difficulties, even after the treatment has finished.

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CBT Explained

How cognitive behavioural therapy works

CBT works by helping the client identify, challenge and modify the belief systems that lead to emotional distress and problematic behaviours. When irrational beliefs are accepted as facts, they can cause excessive emotional distress (e.g. worry, fear, sadness, anger). To prevent this distress, people often develop dysfunctional coping skills (behaviours) such as avoiding situations, which might help reduce the intensity of their emotions in the short run, but actually increase their emotional distress in the long run and keeps these symptoms coming back. These negative patterns of thinking and behaving can actually reinforce each other over time, leading to a vicious cycle of distorted thoughts, emotional distress, and over protective behaviours and avoidance.

What we think affects how we act and feel.
What we feel affects how we think and do.
What we do affects how we think and feel.

Working with your therapist, you will:

Identify the thoughts and behaviours that reinforce this cycle
Test the accuracy of your beliefs and challenge the helpfulness of your behaviours
Develop skills, strategies and techniques to help you achieve your desired outcome

While addressing maladaptive thinking patterns is important, what is even more important is to identify problematic coping strategies that tend to make the condition worse or can even cause the condition in the first place.

This means we will work to reduce the over-reliance on avoidance and safety behaviours that prevent one from learning how to tolerate their distress briefly and be able to let go of the fear or other negative thoughts and emotions.

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Scheduling your first appointment with CBT Professionals is easy. Just click the button below to visit our contact page, where you can fill in a secure and confidential form, and receive a discreet call-back from our team.

How does CBT work?

A quick checklist about the CBT process, and how it works

CBT is Structured

Time Limited (6-20 Sessions)

Problem-focused and goal-oriented

Collaborative with therapist

Teaches strategies and skills

Based on proactive, shared therapeutic relationship between therapist/client

Gives you the power and control to change how you feel and respond to various situations

Who is CBT best suited to?

Because of its incredible versatility, and decades of research and modifications throughout its history, CBT is a suitable treatment for almost every mental health condition that people seek treatment for

The true power of CBT, however, comes from clients taking control and implementing the strategies they have learned independently. These skills take practice and repetition, which occurs between sessions with the therapist.

CBT goes beyond simple talk therapy, or insight-oriented therapy, in that it is an active, problem focused, and present focused, therapy that requires effort and perseverance on the part of the patient.

In short, in collaboration with your therapist, CBT is for anyone, with almost any problem, who is committed to putting in consistent CBT-based work to effectively overcome their problems.