Getting Started With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a popular method of treatment because of its ease of use and high success rate. CBT gives the client tools for questioning negative thoughts and evaluating irrational thinking. It then provides a method for replacing these thoughts with positive directives.

Anxiety therapy helps clients learn CBT methods to identify the negative thoughts through simple identification of ongoing issues that lead to feelings of anxiety. For example, a client may stop going to social events because the last time they went out someone made a mean comment. Rather than allow this one event to dictate their reaction to socializing, CBT would help the client look at the event and decide why this person's reaction has such a strong hold over them. Perhaps the client feels that the person's rudeness represents how all people feel about the client. CBT allows the client to reconsider the event and provide a more positive outcome. Perhaps the person had a bad day or maybe they were misread. The client questions their irrational thinking and is now in a place to let go of the negative thought pattern. The client is able to reevaluate social situations with a clean slate.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a powerful method for challenging negative thoughts in a simple and easily generalized way. Challenging these thought patterns and replacing them with more beneficial and productive thinking becomes easier and allow the client to work through symptoms of anxiety and subsequent behaviors that follow.