CBT: What to Know and What to Expect
These negative thoughts and feelings that you’re having are starting to affect more than just your internal well-being.
You’re interested in therapy, but you’re not quite sure where to start. You’re trying to find a solution to the problems you’re facing. You can’t help but feel a little more stressed and overwhelmed with these different options to sort through.
You keep coming across different acronyms, reaching out about the recommended therapy options, and trying to determine which is best suited for your wants, needs, and overall goals of treatment.
CBT has come across multiple times in your various search attempts. This is what to know and what to expect with CBT.
What Is CBT?
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that can help people change their negative or unwanted behaviors, feelings, and thoughts. During this form of therapy, individuals will work with a trained professional by attending sessions so that they can start to become more aware of their destructive thoughts and feelings to help change them into more positive ones.
What CBT Helps With
CBT is a highly effective form of therapy that is one of the recommended therapy options for a wide range of problems, like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, marital problems, substance use, and more. These are just a few of the emotional challenges that CBT can help with:
- Better managing any physical or emotional signs or symptoms
- Communicating more effectively
- Coping with loss
- Identifying how to manage emotions
- Learning coping techniques
- Resolving relationship conflict
What to Expect With CBT
This form of therapy can be done one-on-one with yourself and a therapist. It can also be done within groups of family members or support groups with people who share similar issues.
CBT involves first taking the time to learn about your concerns and then learning and practicing any coping mechanisms or techniques to help you better manage any stress and help you relax moving forward. This is what you can expect during CBT sessions.
The First Session
During your first CBT session, a therapist will work to help gather information about you and the areas that you’d like to work on. The first session is also a great way to see if the therapist that you’re meeting with is a good match for you. During this session, you’re also able to ask questions about their approach, their recommended therapy option, your goals, and any questions that you may have about what the sessions look like.
During CBT
Once you get started on your CBT sessions, your therapist will have you start to dive deeper into your thoughts and feelings. Throughout the sessions, you’ll work together to break down any problems. Your therapist may use a variety of different techniques, like restructuring or reframing, exposure therapy, or guided discovery.
In between sessions, your therapist may have you complete homework assignments like writing prompts, readings, or other activities. These tools will help build on what you learned and be able to apply these learnings to real-life scenarios.
Post-CBT
The sessions during CBT will help you identify those negative areas in your life, become more aware of your own thoughts and feelings, and start to reshape the ways that you think and feel about certain situations. CBT is a highly effective therapy option. It can be done in person or virtually. It’s also an affordable treatment option because changes can be seen within five to twenty sessions.
Next Steps
When you’re ready, we’re here to help you explore and challenge those negative thought patterns and feelings you’ve been having. Reach out today to learn more about cognitive behavior therapy and how we can help you.