Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders and severe mental illness.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy. This form of therapy modifies thought patterns in order to change moods and behaviors. It’s based on the idea that negative actions or feelings are the result of current distorted beliefs or thoughts, not unconscious forces from the past.CBT is a blend of cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy. Cognitive therapy focuses on your moods and thoughts. Behavioral therapy specifically targets actions and behaviors. A therapist practicing the combined approach of CBT works with you in a structured setting.
You and your therapist work to identify specific negative thought patterns and behavioral responses to challenging or stressful situations.Treatment involves developing more balanced and constructive ways to respond to stressors. Ideally these new responses will help minimize or eliminate the troubling behavior or disorder.The principles of CBT can also be applied outside of the therapist's office.
Online cognitive behavioral therapy is one example. It uses the principles of CBT to help you track and manage your depression and anxiety symptoms online. CBT is a more short-term approach than psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies. Other types of therapies may require several years for discovery and treatment.
CBT often requires.The sessions provide opportunities to identify current life situations that may be causing or contributing to your depression. You and your therapist identify current patterns of thinking or distorted perceptions that lead to depression.This is different from psychoanalysis. That type of therapy involves working backward through your life history to discover an unconscious source of the problems you’re facing.You may be asked to keep a journal as part of CBT. The journal provides a place for you to record life events and your reactions. The therapist can help you break down reactions and thought patterns into several categories of self-defeating thought.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is widely used to treat several disorders and conditions in children, adolescents, and adults. These disorders and conditions include:. antisocial behaviors (including lying, stealing, and hurting animals or other people).
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anxiety disorders. attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. bipolar disorder. conduct disorder. depression. eating disorders such as binge eating, anorexia, and bulimia.
general stress. personality disorders.
phobias. schizophrenia. sexual disorders. sleep disorders. social skill problems. substance abuseCognitive behavioral therapy may be combined with other treatments to help with depression.
There is little long-term emotional risk associated with CBT. But exploring painful feelings and experiences can be stressful. Treatment may involve facing situations you’d otherwise avoid. For instance, you may be asked to spend time in public places if you have a fear of crowds. Alternately you may need to confront the death of a loved one that is causing your depression.These scenarios can provide opportunities to practice altered responses to stressful or adverse situations. The eventual goal of therapy is to teach you how to deal with anxiety and stress in a safe and constructive manner.
“There is a massive tidal wave of evidence for cognitive behavioral therapy that suggests it is very effective at treating certain problems,” Simon Rego, Psy.D. Of Montefiore Medical Center in New York told Healthline. “The breadth of evidence isn’t as extensive for other forms of psychotherapy.”That’s not to say other therapies aren’t equally effective and beneficial. “They just don’t fit as neatly into anything that can be studied,” Rego says. “More evidence-based studies have been conducted on the results of cognitive-behavioral therapy than any other kind.”.
What is cognitive therapy?The term cognitive comes from the Latin 'cognoscere', meaning 'to recognize.' The point of cognitive therapy is to form a clear idea of your own thoughts, attitudes and expectations.
The goal is to reveal and change false and distressing beliefs, because it is often not only the things and situations themselves that cause problems, but the importance that we attach to them too.For example, a dangerous thought pattern might be when somebody immediately draws negative conclusions from an occurrence, generalizes them and applies them to similar situations. In psychology, this generalized way of thinking is called “over-generalizing.” Another distressing error in reasoning is “catastrophizing”: If something disturbing happens, people immediately draw exaggerated conclusions about the scope of the supposed disaster ahead.Such thought patterns can sometimes develop into self-fulfilling prophecies and make life difficult for the people affected. Cognitive therapy helps people learn to replace these thought patterns with more realistic and less harmful thoughts. It also helps people to think more clearly and to control their own thoughts better. How does behavioral therapy work?Behavioral therapy has its origins in American “behaviorism.” This theory assumes that human behavior is learned and can therefore be unlearned or learned anew. Behavioral therapy aims to find out whether certain behavioral patterns make your life difficult or intensify your problems. In the second step you work on changing these behavioral habits.For example, people who have developed depressive thoughts often tend to withdraw and give up their hobbies.
As a result, they feel even more unhappy and isolated. Cognitive therapy helps to identify this mechanism and find ways to become more active again.In anxiety disorders, behavioral therapy often includes learning methods to help you calm down.
For example, you can learn to reduce anxiety by consciously breathing in and out deeply so that your body and breathing can relax. When doing this you concentrate on your breathing instead of what is bringing on your anxiety.
These kinds of techniques can help you to calm down instead of getting all worked up with anxiety.By the way, in Germany, most psychotherapists who are trained in cognitive behavioral therapy call themselves behavioral therapists. ReactionHarmfulNeutralThoughts“He ignored me – he doesn’t like me anymore.”“He didn't notice me – maybe he doesn’t feel well. I should give him a call and find out how he is doing.”FeelingsSomeone who thinks like this feels down, sad and rejected.These thought patterns do not cause any negative feelings.BehaviorThe consequence of this thought is to avoid this person in the future, although the assumption could be completely false.This thought is a prompt to get back in touch with the person to find out if everything is all right. How is cognitive behavioral therapy different from other psychotherapies?Cognitive behavioral therapy is a problem-oriented strategy.
It focuses on current problems and finding solutions for them. Unlike psychoanalysis, for example, it does not deal primarily with the past.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is much more concerned with dealing with current problems. The most important thing is helping people to help themselves: They should be able to cope with their lives again without therapy as soon as possible. This does not mean that cognitive behavioral therapy completely ignores the influence of past events.
But it mainly deals with identifying and changing current distressing thought and behavioral patterns.Analytic psychotherapy, which has its origin in classic Freudian psychoanalysis, uses different methods. Here the therapist tries to help the patient discover and understand problems and their deeper causes.
When is cognitive behavioral therapy an option?Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to treat conditions such as, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders, and addictions. But it is also an option for treating physical conditions such as chronic pain, tinnitus and rheumatism. It can help to relieve the symptoms.Cognitive behavioral therapy requires the patient's commitment and own initiative. Therapy can only be successful if the patient actively takes part in the treatment and also works on their problems between sessions. This can be a considerable challenge, especially with severe conditions such as or anxiety disorders. That is why medication is sometimes used at first to quickly relieve the worst symptoms so that psychotherapy can be started.Choosing a certain kind of psychotherapy also depends on the goals. If you feel the need for deep insight into the causes of your problems, cognitive behavioral therapy is probably not the right choice.
It is particularly useful if you are mainly interested in tackling specific problems and are only secondarily concerned with the “why.”. How does cognitive behavioral therapy work and how long does it take?It is important that you and your psychotherapist have a close and trusting working relationship. It can sometimes take a while to find the right therapist.In the first session, you will briefly explain your current problems and outline your expectations. That forms the basis for discussing the goals of therapy and the therapy plan. The plan can be adjusted if your personal goals change over the course of therapy.Therapy often includes recording your own thoughts in a journal over a certain period of time.
The therapist will then check the following things with you: Do I perceive things appropriately and realistically? What happens if I behave differently than I normally do in a certain situation? You will regularly discuss any problems you may have and progress that you have made.Cognitive behavioral therapy also uses relaxation exercises, stress and pain relief methods, and certain problem-solving strategies.Compared to analytical psychotherapy approaches, cognitive behavioral therapy is a short-term treatment. But there is also no standard length of cognitive behavioral therapy. Some people already feel much better after a few sessions, while others need treatment for several months. This depends on the kind and severity of the problems, among other things.
An individual session lasts about an hour. Sessions usually take place once a week. Cognitive behavioral therapy is offered in psychotherapy practices, hospitals and rehabilitation clinics. It is sometimes also offered as group therapy. Who covers the costs?In Germany, statutory health insurance pays for cognitive behavioral therapy to treat mental illnesses such as, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders as well as addictions.
The costs of cognitive behavioral therapy can also be covered for the treatment of severe symptoms that result from a chronic illness. It can however sometimes take several weeks or months until you can see a therapist or until the insurance company approves therapy.In Germany, a psychotherapy practice can bill the statutory health insurance company directly for up to five trial sessions. This way you can get to know the psychotherapist, find out what the problems are and whether therapy is worthwhile. After the trial sessions, you and your psychotherapist have to prepare an application explaining why therapy is needed.
You have to submit this application to your health insurance company before therapy can begin. Besides this application, your health insurance company also requires a medical report from your doctor stating that the symptoms are not caused by a physical problem, and that there are no medical reasons against psychotherapy. The statutory health insurance company decides whether to approve therapy based on an evaluation. IQWiG health information is written with the aim of helpingpeople understand the advantages and disadvantages of the main treatment options and healthcare services.Because IQWiG is a German institute, some of the information provided here is specific to theGerman health care system. The suitability of any of the described options in an individualcase can be determined by talking to a doctor. We do not offer individual consultations.Our information is based on the results of good-quality studies.
It is written by a team ofhealth care professionals, scientists and editors, and reviewed by external experts. You canfind a detailed description of how our health information is produced and updated inour methods.