What is CBT?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is commonly referred to as CBT. As a type of psychotherapy or "talk therapy," CBT can help you identify and replace negative thoughts and behaviors with more positive and useful ones. Considered a "time-limited" form of therapy, CBT guides patients in quickly adapting new insight, tools and techniques to modify negative thoughts and feelings.

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How does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy work?

Typically, three key activities are involved in CBT sessions:

1.Breathing retraining.

2.Mental health education and

3.Cognitive restructuring.

Alone and together, these therapeutic activities offer an effective means for reducing symptoms such as anxiety, negativity, distress, irritability or physical tension in the body. Here's more about what's involved with each.

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Breathing retraining: Over time and with practice, you can use this technique to retrain your body to inhale and exhale in ways that help you reach a relaxed state, even when experiencing stressful situations.

Mental Health Education:

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By learning about the causes and symptoms of mental illness and gaining a better understanding of the connection between mental health issues, cognitive thought patterns and other challenges (including substance use disorders), you can focus on the most-effective resources and practices to manage your health and ongoing recovery.

Cognitive restructuring:

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Using this therapy technique, you can identify and challenge thoughts and beliefs that cause you distress. It's a practice and technique that involves self-monitoring to increase your awareness of thoughts that lead to distress and anxiety. With the guidance of your therapist, you can learn to identify thinking patterns that contribute to anxiety or negative feelings. Then your therapist can teach you helpful cognitive and behavioral techniques for challenging and modifying the sufferers thought patterns to reduce feelings of distress or anxiety.

Who benefits from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

We are using CBT techniques to treat a variety of psychological and behavioral disorders, including co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. People with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders and other mental health challenges have been shown to benefit from this type of therapy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can also help you cope with emotional challenges or anxiety, whether situational or ongoing. In fact, CBT practices are useful to modify cognitive and behavior patterns in order to reach personal goals, create healthier relationships and, generally, change their lives for the better.