What is Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT)?

Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT) was developed in the 1950s by Dr Aaron Beck, an American psychiatrist, and has been high on the list of mainstream psychological therapies since. It is an established, research-driven, measurable therapy. Research continues to develop and improve treatments. CBT treats many psychological difficulties. The list of difficulties that CBT can help with has grown considerably over the years Research continues to monitor and develop its effectiveness.

Therapy Relationship.

You form a "therapy partnership" with your therapist. Sessions are reviewed and focused with agreed aims of treatment and establishing how therapy is helping you.

CBT works on the idea that emotional difficulties can be described as you being in a self-maintaining vicious cycle (formulation) where some situations trigger how you respond – i.e. how you think, feel, experience bodily changes and how you respond (behaviours). How these responses are linked is established.

Vicious Cycles.

There are many variations of these cycles (sometimes called formulations, conceptualisations or models). The cycle that best fits your experience is “customised” to you. A shared understanding is developed between you and your therapist when sessions start.

Make sense of your self, others and your life.

Once this cycle has been developed and understood, the aim is to break the cycle by e.g. helping you develop new, more accurate and helpful perspectives in how you think, and by helping you change the way you behave / respond. This includes for example helping you to reduce anxiety and lift your mood as well as making other changes to your life.

CBT explores day to day difficulties, but it can also help you to explore the past by helping you understand yourself and your experiences, and run your life differently.

It depends on the nature of your difficulty.

 ....finally

It is difficult to briefly describe any therapy. Please contact me if you would like to find out more, or visit the BABCP website. There are also many excellent self-help books available, written by leading cognitive therapists. If I can, I will make recommendations as part of therapy.

If you wish to proceed after contacting me, we can then organise an initial assessment with a view to starting therapy.

Therapy aims at helping you understand yourself better, and to make changes.

I look forward to hearing from you.