When something bad happens to you, it can feel like a dark cloud is looming over you. Your bright and sunshine-filled day turned into a dark, gloomy, cold one.
You can’t seem to shake the negative feelings when you’re upset. You don’t want to feel this way. No matter how hard you try to change your mood, your thoughts and actions are negative. You’re trying to be more positive. In fact, you would consider yourself a fairly positive person. For some reason when something negative, challenging, or unexpected happens, you can’t help but fall into a vicious cycle. The dark cloud won’t seem to disperse to let the sunshine through.
You don’t feel like you can talk to anyone either, not even your family or close friends. Plus, you’ve turned down their invites so many times lately. You feel like you’re not worthy and don’t deserve them or their friendship.
If you’re feeling this way, CBT may be a great option for you to help change your mindset when faced with difficult times. Let’s learn more about CBT and how it helps with mental health.
What is CBT?
CBT is the acronym used for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is a common type of talk therapy. A therapist will work with you during a session to help you become aware of any negative thinking patterns when faced with certain situations. Once you’re aware of your thoughts, they’ll work with you to help you respond to them in a more positive way.
How Does CBT Work?
CBT is a very structured therapy approach. You’ll work with your therapist to discuss the specific problems you may be having as well as the goals that you’d like to see out of the treatment.
During the session, a therapist will help you better manage your current thoughts and actions rather than focusing on situations that occurred in your past. The goal of CBT is to help you better manage your thoughts and emotions moving forward.
Depending on the area you want to focus on, you may have a one-on-one discussion with your therapist, or you may role-play a scenario to see how you can respond or think about things in a different way. Your therapist may also give you homework or worksheets to complete so that you’re still practicing and working to improve in and out of your sessions.
What Can CBT Help With?
CBT is used to help address a wide variety of emotional and mental health challenges.
Here are just a few of the many benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:
- Cope with loss or illness
- Great treatment option when medication can’t or shouldn’t be used
- Identify ways to better manage emotions
- Learn communication skills, especially when faced with conflict
- Learn coping techniques for future stressors
- Manage chronic physical symptoms
- Overcome emotional trauma
- Reduce signs and symptoms of mental illness
These are a few of the mental health disorders that have shown improvement with the help of CBT:
- Anxiety
- Bipolar disorder
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Phobias
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Sexual disorders
- Sleep disorders
- Substance use and abuse
Next Steps
You may be interested in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on your own. Or maybe it was recommended to you by a family member, friend, co-worker, or doctor. Either way, there are some things to consider before getting started.
The first step is finding a therapist. Colorado CBT offers Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as other treatments that may be better suited for you and your needs.
Contact us today to set up a consultation. One of our therapists will work with you to better understand your wants, needs, and goals out of therapy, as well as help you better understand the costs and any concerns you may have.