What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

CBT Therapy | Wimbledon | London

Cognitive behavioural therapy focuses on how your thoughts (cognition), affects how you feel (feelings) about yourself, a specific situation and/or the world and consequently determine how you behave (behaviour) (what we do, or don't do). Within this approach, distress is conceptualised as unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours that create difficulties. CBT therapy, in fact, takes on the view that our feelings, thoughts, and how we behave are connected and by changing one of these factors will affect the others.

This evidence-based approach is helpful in managing difficulty behaviours or feelings that might be experienced in specific situations. The work is goal-oriented and problem specific focusing on present issues.

How does cognitive behavioural therapy work?

Working collaboratively with the therapist, you will develop helpful insights on how to identify and change unhelpful thinking patterns or behaviours that have become ‘automatic’ over time and learn new ways and strategies to change and / or manage your feelings, behaviour and thinking.

CBT therapy is characterised by specific tools and techniques. Depending on your problem, your therapist may ask you to keep a ‘thought record diary’ or to write down what you do in specific situations, and will often give you ‘homework’ to do in between sessions, that will be then evaluated together in the next session.

These CBT techniques are aimed to help you monitor your thoughts / behaviours, thus providing a clearer understanding of the issue, and evaluate whether they are realistic, helpful and their effects on your day-to-day life. This is designed to help you understand and explore possible ways in which these unhelpful patterns of behaviour / thinking styles can be changed.

In order to change / challenge your thoughts / behaviours, your therapist may ask you to do specific behavioural experiments that will be designed together with you, and subsequently evaluate their outcomes and proceed to monitor your progress in the application of these changes and new learned skills in your everyday life.

This approach is usually described as a short-term approach given its characteristic of working with specific attainable goals.