Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: 5 Things You Should Know About It

If you’re thinking of starting therapy, you’ve likely run into the term modality before. A modality is the approach a therapist takes when providing care for their patients. One of the modalities we utilize here is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). 

CBT is an approach that focuses on how our thinking patterns influence our behavioral patterns. The main idea behind CBT is that thoughts influence how we feel and act. Basically: how we act can in turn also affect how we think and feel in a given situation, and our unhelpful thoughts can then lead to unhealthy behaviors and feelings. CBT helps you to understand and break this cycle.

Here are five things you should know about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: 

1). CBT has been shown to be effective for a wide range of presenting concerns: 

CBT is an active, goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment. As a treatment, it’s been studied and shown to be highly effective in treating a wide range of people (children, adolescents, and adults) with a wide range of presenting emotional and behavioral concerns such as: 

• Depression

• Anxiety

• bipolar disorder

• Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (e.g., postpartum depression)

• Sleep

• Relationship problems

CBT has also been found to contribute to significant improvements in functioning and quality of life.

2). CBT has been studied extensively in both research and clinical practice. 

CBT is an evidence based treatment. What that means is that its efficacy has been proven to be safe and effective through extensive scientific and clinical research. This research involves thousands of patients and meticulous comparison of effects to alternative treatments. Evidence based treatments help increase the effectiveness of the treatment and helps reduce the risk of recurrence of damaging behavioral patterns. There’s heaps of scientific evidence out there showing that CBT is effective in producing meaningful change and improvements for clients.

3). One of the core principles of CBT is that problems with mood are related to unhelpful behaviors and thought patterns. 

These negative thinking patterns can influence our mood and exacerbate feelings of anxiety, depression, or other feelings of insecurity and self doubt. This can then contribute to a pattern of unhealthy behaviors–which in turn starts the cycle all over again. With CBT, these thought and behavior patterns are explored and new, healthy ways of coping are explored to effectively relieve symptoms and improve quality of life. 

4). Psychologists and clients work together collaboratively to develop goals and to actively target symptoms. 

Time is spent examining present-day issues, thoughts, and behaviors. For example: 

A teen who is depressed might think, "Everything is hopeless," or "There's no point to anything I do." 

Emotionally, these thoughts may occur with feelings of sadness, depression, apathy, and lack of motivation. Behaviorally, the depression may appear as increased isolation, withdrawal from usual activities, refusal to attend school, etc. However, these behaviors only reinforce the negative thinking patterns, and exacerbates the cycle of withdrawing from life due to a feeling that there’s no point in participating.  

For this, treatment would involve teaching the teen to identify and challenge negative thoughts, skills to cope with depressed mood (e.g., activity scheduling), and working with parents to develop a reinforcement system to encourage positive behaviors and use of coping strategies. CBT is highly collaborative, practical, and goal oriented. 

5). Because CBT is very goal oriented, there are many skills clients develop as part of the process. 

They are learning how to face fears, problem solving difficult situations, recognizing patterns of unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and ways to calm the mind and body. Other skills taught as part of CBT include:

• Problem solving

• Communication training

• Cognitive restructuring aka learning to identify and dispute cognitive distortions. You can read more about cognitive distortions from these posts on our blog: 

• 8 Common Cognitive Distortions to Watch Out For

• 10 More Cognitive Distortions to Be Aware Of

• Managing Cognitive Distortions

• What is All or Nothing Thinking?

• Why “Should” Statements Make You Feel Worse

• Social skills training

• Relaxation training

• Behavioral activation aka intentionally practicing specific behaviors that promote a positive mental state, or avoid negative thinking traps. 

Are you interested in CBT? Our clinicians at Hope+Wellness offer CBT therapy in our office and online. We serve the McLean, Great Falls, Falls Church, Arlington, Alexandria, and the greater Washington DC regions, as well as offering online services in DC, MD, VA, and all PSYPACT states. If you would like to talk to one of our therapists, please contact info@hope-wellness.com.