Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a type of talking treatment which focuses on how your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect your feelings and behaviour, and teaches you coping skills for dealing with different problems. It combines cognitive therapy (examining the things you think) and behaviour therapy (examining the things you do. It is based on the idea that the way we think about situations can affect the way we feel and behave. For example, if you interpret a situation negatively then you might experience negative emotions as a result, and those bad feelings might then lead you to behave in a certain way.

If your negative interpretation of situations goes unchallenged, then these patterns in your thoughts, feelings and behaviour can become part of a continuous cycle:

At Working Mind, our CBT therapists will help you to identify and challenge any negative thinking patterns and behaviour which may be causing you difficulties. In turn this can change the way you feel about situations and enable you to change your behaviour in future.

CBT has been known to be equally, if not more effective than anti-depressants, and is prescribed for multiple mental health conditions, such as:

• Addiction
• Eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulimia
• Moderate Depression and Anxiety
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• Phobias
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

A typical one to one CBT session starts with discussing what it is you would like to talk about that day, or what are the issues that have built up and now need to be addressed. Our therapists will help you will dismantle each problem into small, more manageable chunks, which are more easily analysed and worked on. Each session usually lasts an hour, and the courses usually consists of around 6 to 12 sessions.