Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): How to Learn to be Your Own Therapist
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been proven to help all manner of distress, including anxiety, depression, and conflicts within relationships.
There’s a story of a rider on a horse racing through a small town. As the townspeople look up, they imagine the rider has somewhere important to be. Finally, as the rider reaches the other side of the town to exit, a townsperson yells, “Ho, Rider, where are you going in such a hurry?” And the Rider responds over his shoulder, “I don’t know, ask the horse!”
Do you ever feel like your thoughts are in charge of you rather than the other way around? Our mind is meant to be a tool, not the one in control. However, there is good news. We can learn to turn this around through the practice of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our beliefs and perspectives determine our feelings (anxiety, depression, stress) and our behavior (withdrawing, get angry at someone).
Negative or unrealistic thoughts and beliefs can cause pain or even emotional suffering which can affect all areas in our lives. This then creates a negative cycle in which negative experiences create more distressing thoughts, which then lead to more painful emotions, which then lead to more avoidant behaviors, which reinforce negative beliefs, and so on.
The focus of CBT is to help you become aware of these “irrational” thoughts or beliefs (beliefs are just more deeply embedded thoughts, ex., “I am not good enough,” or “I’m unworthy”). Once aware of these distorted beliefs, we can then begin to evaluate their accuracy, begin to reassess them and, in the process, develop alternate ways of thinking and behaving that can produce a more positive impact on your life and improve your self esteem.
The beauty of CBT is that as you learn more about your own relationship to these thoughts and how to “reality test” them, that is, to see if these thoughts are realistic or useful, you can gain more control over how your mind works, be your own therapist, in effect. Even more powerful is combining CBT with Mindfulness as mindfulness helps you to become more aware of your thoughts as they are happening. There is a great synergy between these two modes of change.
**You can click on the link directly above to read more about mindfulness and how it can help you.
