What is the most common, and most effective, modern form of psychotherapy utilized in counseling services today?

The answer is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also know as CBT is a brief, solution-focused behavioral treatment that helps people process the correlations between automatic thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and consequences. In fact, an individual’s perceptions hugely will impact their responses to specific situations. A person’s thoughts always lead to their behaviors and actions. CBT is often combined with other therapeutic approaches, such as Rational Emotional Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. The perception of events determines how people produce their feelings and behaviors. As human beings, our brains automatically struggles with a negative belief system, which will increase once that self-prophesizing pattern starts to emerge in real-life circumstances. As a person continues to engage in their negative thoughts, they get caught continuously in vicious, continuous cycles of negativity and anxiety. CBT assists to adjust thoughts, then adjust the emotions and behaviors. This is referred to as cognitive restructuring. Our thinking pattern begins during childhood. These cognitive errors causes dysfunctional assumptions, such as self-referencing, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, excessive self-blame, and dichotomous thinking. CBT utilizes an educational model to teach how to manage negative reactions, then replace with positive emotional and behavioral reactions for challenging circumstances. CBT involves a collaborative relationship between the therapist and the client throughout an average of 16 counseling sessions. With this form of treatment, clients enhance their abilities to identify emotional patterns by journaling, challenging their beliefs, practicing mindfulness, relaxing, interacting socially, and physically exercising.

Defining behavioral and emotional concerns affecting an individual’s quality of life is the target population for CBT. The issues and deficits for CBT treatment focus is geared toward depression, anxiety, mood issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, substance dependency, phobias, eating disorders, chronic pain, insomnia, sexual dysfunctions, and anger management. Several types of issues and concerns can also receive benefits from using CBT interventions. Full commitment is required in order for CBT to be effective. There are limitations of Cognitive Behavioral therapy. CBT is unable to be effective for severe trauma, until a person has resolved the immense intrusive thoughts. CBT is not able to treat people who experience vague unhappiness without being able to identify their own thoughts. CBT is unable to treat long-term health issues to decrease physical symptoms, however CBT is able to assist with the emotional pain that occurs. Additionally, CBT is unable to dive deep into the psychological and emotional underpinnings of behavior.

There are several benefits of CBT treatment. As a matter of fact, most medical insurance companies prefer or even require that mental health professionals use CBT in their treatment plan because of the direct, short-term, and evidence based practices. This allows clients to achieve significant progress in minimal time and prevents insurance companies from needing to cover long-term treatment, such as with psychodynamic approaches. In my professional opinion, CBT has the ability to create tremendous benefits in people who truly want to reach their goals. I have witnessed numerous successful CBT treatments. Regardless of age, cognitive level, etc., anyone can understand and use CBT strategies in their daily life. This approach is easy to implement with several disorders and situations. My personal preference for treatment involves integrating CBT as much as possible with eclectic forms of psychotherapy.

To learn more about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and to see if it is the right treatment for you or someone you know, call (760) 458-1600 or Book an Appointment TODAY for a Complimentary Session.

For more information on receiving help please check out the Resources Page.