I’ve done a lot of therapy before, you name it, from DBT, EMDR, talk therapy, group therapy, and CBT. So what is cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT?
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.
CBT is based on challenging your unhealthy, unhelpful, or faulty ways of thinking. It helps challenge learned behaviors that are less than idea for healing. It helps you learn different coping mechanisms to deal with symptoms of anxiety, depression, or other PTSD symptoms that can effect your life.
You may already do this kind of thinking process in your head when you’re confronted with a problem. You try to weigh out the “pros” and “cons”, or the “what ifs” of a situation. Below I’ve posted an example that I recently used with a situation I was in a couple of weeks ago. Feel free to download the blank worksheet and use it for yourself when you find yourself struggling with negative thinking.
Breaking down the worksheet
Situation: What was the situation that you were in? What was going on around you that made you feel the way you feel? What was the event?
Emotions or feelings: What were the emotions you felt? Try to be more descriptive than just “sad” or “angry”. Really try to figure out what emotion you felt and why.
Negative automatic thought: What was the first image/thought that popped into you head to make this a negative situation?
Supporting/Non-supporting evidence: What supports that your thought is true or false?
Alternative thought: Looking at the evidence, what can you concur about the thought that could be a different way of looking at it?
