What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy simplified
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT for short is considered the current gold standard for psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is a fancy/scary word for therapy. I don’t care for it because it plays into the troupe that therapy is for crazy or “psycho,” so let’s just call it therapy.
CBT is an evidence-based treatment that has gone through numerous randomized trials. The results show that CBT is helpful and effective in treating a wide range of mental health issues.
But what is it? I mean that’s why you’re here so I should probably get to that.
I’ll break it down here the same way I explain it to my clients.
The Basics of CBT
The basic concept of CBT is that the things you continually tell yourself become the things that you believe.
If you have ever wondered how in the round world someone can believe the earth is flat, it is because of three reasons.
Reason 1: Because science says it is, obviously.
Reason 2: That was a joke; please don’t leave.
And Reason 3: Because they have continually told themselves the world is flat and it has become an ingrained belief in their mind.
