COUNSELING & SUPERVISION

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a short-term, goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment that takes a hands-on, practical approach to problem-solving.  It's goal is to change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people's difficulties, and so change the way they feel.  It is used to help a wide range of issues in a person's life, from sleeping difficulties or relationship problems to anxiety and depression. CBT works by changing people's attitudes and their behavior by focusing on the thoughts, images, beliefs, and attitudes that are held and how these processes relate to the way a person behaves, as a way of dealing with emotional problems.

The client and therapist work together to understand what the problems are and develop new strategies for tackling them.  CBT introduces people to a set of principles that they can apply whenever they need to and that'll last them a lifetime.

CBT is based on a model or theory that it's not the events themselves that upset us, but the meanings we give them.  If our thoughts are too negative, it can block us seeing things that don't fit- that disconfirm- what we believe is true.  In other words, we continue to hold on to the same old thoughts and fail to learn anything new.

Clearly, negative things can and do happen.  But when we are in a disturbed state of mind, we may be basing our predictions and interpretations on a biased view of the situation, making the difficulty that we face seem much worse.  CBT helps people to correct these misinterpretations.