What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): A Pro-Active Approach

The Underlying Theory

Scientific evidence has strongly demonstrated that the way you feel is the result of a complex interplay between what happens around you and to you, the way that you process information about yourself and your surroundings, and your behaviors (for example, health behaviors such as sleep, exercise, and alcohol consumption, and the way that you interact with other people). While feeling better (both emotionally and physically) is the real goal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, science has demonstrated that we do not feel emotions without first making interpretations (we call them appraisals). If a gun is pointed at you, and you do not know that it is a gun, it will not frighten you. You have to process what the object is and what it might do before you feel an emotion. That’s an easy one. A guy would scare just about anyone.

But what if a blank stare is pointed at you? What if you call someone, and they don’t return your call? What if you feel a lump on your arm, and you don’t know what it is? What if you have a responsibility, and you don’t think you can pull it off? What if you believe that you are a failure?

The way that you process information is everything. If you think that that the situation is bad, and it is not, you are going to needlessly feel bad. If you think that the situation is bad, and it is, you still might doubt yourself, and not do the right thing by standing up for yourself. Or you might not know how. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will help you make sense of what is real and what is not. It will help you understand what you should do next.

The Method

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a combination of cognitive therapy and behavior therapy. 

Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive Therapy is all about understanding what is really happening, instead of impulsively or reactively assuming that, for example, we are not good enough, others do not like us, a situation is dangerous, or a particular response to others is going to be productive. If we learn through therapy that we are not actually in danger, we feel better – as long as we truly believe it. Or, we learn that we really are in danger, and we realize that we need to do something to protect ourselves. Sometimes we learn that we were right about the danger, but we were wrong about what protective behavior might actually work. Sometimes we learn that our beliefs prompt us to repeat behaviors that keep leading to failure. Cognitive Therapy helps us to re-examine those beliefs in ways that are more likely to lead to success. 

Behavior Therapy

Behavior therapy can focus on one of two things (or both), depending on the situation: behavior change or conditioning.

Behavior Change: Behavior therapy can help you understand why you do what you do by identifying factors that cause you to want to do things (approach motives), factors that make you want to withdraw (escape/avoidance motives), and how they interact with one another in complex ways. We will help you understand these factors, and we will give you real skills that can help you overcome unhelpful motivations. In this way, we can help you remove barriers and actively engage with people and activities that can bring you more joy and fulfillment – and we can help you understand how to stop doing other less helpful things.

Counter-conditioning through exposure: Sometimes we have simply been conditioned to feel anxious in certain situation. Or OCD can make us feel bad in certain situations for no known reason. Counter-conditioning is a process in which we are exposed to situations and things that make us uncomfortable, but that do not actually bring us harm. We gradually learn to not be afraid of them, and things get progressively easier and less awful. Some people almost forget that they felt bad in the first place.

If you are a therapist, and you are feeling burned out, considering joining our practice. We don’t get burned out, because we experience success on a regular basis. Send your resume to [email protected].