What Is CBT and How Does It Work?
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is a psychological ‘talking’ therapy that helps clients to tackle their distressing feelings such as anxiety, anger, stress or depression. It also helps them to stop doing destructive behaviours; sometimes this can be doing something too much such as drinking, or avoiding doing things because of discomfort or fear e.g. not wanting to meet people to socialise. CBT also helps to tackle negative ways of thinking which people often develop without noticing, but which are unhelpful to them in striving to achieve their goals.
In CBT sessions the therapist works with the client to help identify what has caused the problem and what is maintaining it. Together, the therapist and client agree goals in therapy and a plan to achieve them. Clients undertake tasks in between each session which help them to practise and consolidate on new ways of thinking and doing things. This means they can gradually experience better (often more positive) feelings and act in ways that are conducive to achieving their goals.
Typically, clients may have 8 to 12 sessions of CBT – usually weekly at first, but with sessions becoming less frequent to allow time for practising tasks in between sessions. Sometimes, after completing a course of therapy, clients will return for 1 or 2 ‘top up’ sessions if they are finding it difficult to maintain the more helpful ways of thinking and behaving that they learnt and practised during the original course of therapy.