Many cases of anxiety come to be because of your reactions to your everyday surroundings.  In cognitive-behavioral therapy, the patient focuses less on changing their surroundings, and works more on how they respond to outside stimuli.  The core belief is that all of our behavioral quirks are caused by our thoughts, not by outside factors such as the people and events around us.  In this type of therapy, the change must really come from within.

[ad]

One of the cornerstones of cognitive-behavioral therapy is brevity.  Unlike psychoanalysis, which can take years, cases treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy have an average length of 16 sessions.  Cognitive-behavioral therapy is also unique in that it focuses less on the relationship between the therapist and patient.  Since all change must come from within, many of the techniques essential to overcoming your problems are based around rational self-counseling.  Often times, patients are sent home with “homework,” which usually consists of practicing techniques they have learned in their sessions.

The similarities to normal classes don’t stop there though.  Since cognitive-behavioral therapy preaches change from within, we first need to unlearn all of our bad habits.  Often times, this is the hardest part of all.  When you do things for a long enough period of time, they become almost automatic, and it’s no small task to just quit doing them.  Once you’ve cleansed yourself of habitual responses that are causing the problem, you then need to learn to react in a more constructive way.  It’s no small task to change your thought process though, and this is where cognitive-behavioral therapy really shines.

When it comes down to it, cognitive-behavioral therapy isn’t for all people or disorders.  You have to be willing to put in the time and effort to make the changes, and must be willing to seek help.  As with all therapy, you have to believe that it will work before you start seeing results, and put aside all cynicism until you’ve given it a fair chance.  In the end though, I think that cognitive-behavioral therapy works better than any pill you can find out there because it helps your permanently solve the problems coming from within yourself instead of just temporarily patching up a hole.

[ad]

searches:

COGNITIVE THERAPY (33),therapy (21),behavioral therapy (16),cognitive behavioural therapy (10),behavior therapy techniques (1),therapy change (1)