The Basic Principles Of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was developed by Dr Aaron Beck in the 1960’s. It has proved extremely effective in dealing with such problems as depression and anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic attacks and phobias. However, it has also been used for more complicated difficulties such as psychosis and personality disorder.
How it works:
The way we think about situations, have a direct effect on the way we feel about them. Simply put CBT changes the way we think, and therefore changes the way we feel and the actions we take. For example: You are walking home and see a friend on the other side of the road. You wave to her but she ignores you. There are possibly two thoughts you could have about this situation.
1. Why did she ignore me? What have I done?
2. She didn’t see me.
If you had the first thought, you will probably go home feeling depressed, you’ll brood on what has happened and feel worse. Your self esteem and confidence could be affected and also your friendship. You may also feel sick in your stomach or get a headache. If you had the second thought then you will still feel good about yourself and laugh about it with your friend when you next see her.
Try to think back to a situation when you felt bad. How did you feel emotionally? How did you feel physically? Every time you have a feeling about something, you will have already had a thought. Try and capture that thought. This can sometimes be difficult but only because we are not used to doing it. Getting used to identifying our thoughts is extremely important in CBT because changing the way we think will change the way we feel.
Case Scenario:
Jane has been invited to a party by a friend from work. Jane does not have a great deal of confidence and does not go out very often. However, she has decided that she must make more of an effort to socialise. When Jane arrives at the party it is already in full swing. Taking a deep breath, she walks in to the crowded room where many people are chatting and laughing. As she enters the room, a number of people stop talking and turn to look at her.
Because Jane has low self esteem arising from childhood issues and her own feelings that she is overweight, she immediately feels embarrassed and that people are looking at her because they don’t like the way she looks. Jane turns around, walks out of the room and returns home. We don’t know the reason that people looked at Jane. Maybe people just turned around and Jane assumed they were looking at her? Maybe they were looking at her because she looked so nice? In this scenario, it doesn’t really matter why. As far as Jane was concerned they looked at her because she is fat and ugly and as long as she keeps avoiding parties and running away she will continue to believe that.
If Jane changed her thought, her feelings and consequently her actions would automatically change and she could stop the vicious circle.
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