What Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy And Does It Actually Work?
Your boyfriend casually tells you that maybe you should think about changing your dress.
“Did he just imply that I am chunky?” “He thinks that I am obese and repulsive”. “He doesn’t find me attractive and is planning to break-up with me”. “I’m faulty and will end up alone for the rest of my miserable life”,
you bitterly assume to yourself. Your negative thoughts begin to spiral out of control and you suddenly realize that your mood has been negatively hit. Your actions follow suit and you immediately call your best friend and proceed to cancel that brunch date that you were supposed to have. You no longer feel desirable and you feel like you should be hiding-out instead of being seen. You decide that going on a diet is the best course of action. You don’t deserve to go out and have fun.
This is what happens when we allow our negative thoughts to take the reins and negatively impact our actions.
It doesn’t have to be this way and this is exactly what I will discuss in this article. Your hardwiring is partially to blame.
But luckily, you have the power to change it.
CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a treatment that focuses on the root of the problem and seeks to understand an individual's beliefs, thought patterns, and values that underlie their thinking. CBT can help an individual overcome different mental health problems like anxiety, depression, and negative thoughts about oneself. CBT has been the subject of many clinical trials and is among many forms of psychotherapy that has been shown to be highly beneficial. It has also been around for 40 years and has proven to be highly effective with personal problems and behaviors. People of all age ranges have used CBT successfully. CBT helps the individual recognize distorted or unrealistic thinking, and then teaches people how to alter those problematic beliefs and thought patterns to get rid of faulty behavior.
In this blog post I will talk about CBT and how adapting to it can positively alter your brain, provide you with the right tools, and teach you specific skills to improve your life. And finally, I will discuss whom it can benefit and other additional benefits that it provides. And if after reading you conclude that you or someone that you know can benefit from CBT, then you’ll be very excited to hear some amazing news at the end of this blog post.
So what are some ways that people can benefit from using CBT?
CBT Positively Alters Your Brain
CBT is highly effective because it helps the brain form new pathways and teaches the brain to process information and thoughts in a new, healthier way. Wherever we react to a situation or something that stimulates us and we behave in a certain way, a pathway forms in our brain. It’s called neural pathways, and literally everything that you do is driven by those signals. The more you perform a certain action and think a certain thought, the more you train your brain to strengthen that pathway and the quicker your brain defaults to going in that direction.
And it doesn’t take a conscious effort on our end to form these neural pathways. They happen automatically. So whenever you have an anxious thought, or behave in a negative and depressive way, your brain is getting wired to continue to respond in the same negative way. That’s why it’s so difficult to change your behavior and your negative thought patterns. However, there is some great news, it’s not impossible to change and you can retrain your brain again to think more favorably.
The brain’s neural pathways tend to solidify by the age of 25. However, it is still very possible to alter your neural pathways and train your brain to respond and focus on more beneficial scenarios. As long as you’re dedicated to the repetition and the time that it takes to alter the brain’s pathways, it’s very possible to influence the brain along with your thoughts and behaviors.
CBT works by coaching your brain through a different reaction process, which affects either thoughts or behaviors, and which rewires your brain and alters neural pathways in the long run.
CBT Provides the Right Tools and Teaches Specific Skills that Benefit Recepient’s Life
The recipient of CBT benefits from a three-pronged approach of cognitive journaling, mindfulness, and role-playing. All of those exercises recognize old and negative thought patterns and help the recipient replace the negative thoughts with positive ones, which helps rewire their brain. Mindfulness teaches self-awareness and helps the individual stop and think before automatically and unconsciously reacting. When we are aware of something, it is much easier for us to change course and go in the direction that will serve us better.
For example, a person that has trained their brain to react negatively would do something like this - let’s pretend that a few not-so-convenient situations happened to them on any given day. They would then proceed to look at the situation in “black and white” thinking and might possibly label their entire day “terrible”. They would then continue to act as if their entire day was ruined and allow themselves to feel negative the entire day. Perhaps unconsciously, attracting more negative situations into their lives.
In a more positive scenario, that same person would look at the situation in a slightly different way. Instead of allowing a few inconvenient situations to ruin their mood and day, they would acknowledge to themselves that those situations weren’t too pleasant but that they still had a long day ahead to change course. They would also train themselves to acknowledge the good that happened during the day so their point of view continued to be balanced and realistic. They would also be more aware of their negative thoughts throughout the day and train themselves to replace those thoughts with either positive thoughts or neutral and more realistic thoughts.
As long as the individual undergoing CBT is willing to change their behavior and thought patterns, they will likely be successful.
CBT has Been Well Studied and Offers a Lot of Benefits to People of All Ages and to People Experiencing Various Mental Health Disorders
Cognitive behavior therapy has been well studied and has been shown to improve various mental health conditions like: anxiety, depression, anger and stress disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse problems, and bipolar disorder. CBT has also successfully addressed many issues experienced by children, from attention deficit disorder to oppositional and noncompliant disorder, to aggression. CBT has been the subject of more than 400 clinical trials involving different populations and a broad range of conditions.
Here are some of the benefits of CBT -
Places the responsibility on the individual, therefore empowering them
Retrains the brain to think positively
Eliminates or lessens anxiety
Prevents depression
Helps the individual overcome fear-based situations
Supports individuals goals and dreams
Positively alters people’s course of life
Improves relationships
Supports a more healthy relationship with one’s body
To Wrap-Up
CBT is highly beneficial and has been proven to be very effective for individuals of all ages and mental health disorders. Cognitive behavior therapy helps an individual recognize their negative thought patterns and teaches the recipient how to think more realistically or positively. In turn, this helps the brain form and strengthen new pathways that help the individual respond and behave more favorably. Through mindfulness, role-playing, and cognitive journaling CBT helps the recipients gain the skills and tools that they need in order to positively change the course of their life. CBT has been extensively studied and is effective for people with various mental health disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression, and others. It empowers others and teaches them that they are in control of their thinking and therefore have the power to change their thinking to better align with what they want in their life.
If you found this blog post fascinating and would love to learn more and take the necessary steps to positively transform your life or someone else’s life, then I’ve got some amazing news for you.