What is Cognitive Therapy?

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 06 Apr 2005 - 13:00 PDT

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Cognitive Therapy is a way of talking about:

-- How you think about yourself, the world and other people

-- How what you do affects your thoughts and feelings.

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) can help you to change how you think ("Cognitive") and what you do ("Behaviour)". These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the "here and now" problems and difficulties. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.

It has been found to be helpful in:

- Anxiety
- Depression
- Panic
- Agoraphobia and other phobias
- Social phobia
- Bulimia
- Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Post traumatic stress disorder
- Schizophrenia

How does it work?

CBT can help you to make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. This makes it easier to see how they are connected and how they affect you. These parts are:

-- A Situation - a problem, event or difficult situation
From this can follow:

-- Thoughts
-- Emotions
-- Physical feelings
-- Actions

CONTINUES….Royal College of Psychiatrists

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