Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems. CBT can lead to significant improvement in functioning and quality of life. There is evidence that it works.

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is based on the principle that the way we think determines the way we feel. CBT is now one of the most popular method of treatment for psychological problems and is effective for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, phobias and many other mental health disorders.

CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. The psychologist and patient/client work together, in a collaborative fashion, to develop an understanding of the problem and to develop a treatment strategy. These strategies might include:

• Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.
• Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.
• Using problem-solving skills to cope with difficult situations.
• Learning to develop a greater sense of confidence in one’s own abilities.

CBT treatment also usually involves efforts to change behavioral patterns. These strategies might include:

• Facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them.
• Using role playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others.
• Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body.

CBT places an emphasis on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists. Through exercises in the session as well as “homework” exercises outside of sessions, patients/clients are helped to develop coping skills, whereby they can learn to change their own thinking, problematic emotions, and behavior. CBT therapists emphasize what is going on in the person’s current life, rather than what has led up to their difficulties. A certain amount of information about one’s history is needed, but the focus is primarily on moving forward in time to develop more effective ways of coping with life.

From the Bible, Philippians 4:8 reads: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (New International Version). So we want to turn away from things that are the opposite of the above-mentioned things. As 1 Timothy 6:20 says “Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from the empty speeches that violate what is holy and from the contradictions of the falsely called ‘knowledge.'”

Time and Growth

Carol Dweck says, in her book Mindset, that mindsets guide the interpretation process of what is going on around us. The fixed mindset judges. It shames. It says “I am…” or “you are…”. It labels and compares. Growth mindsets are also attuned to their environment but are concerned with learning, improving and helping others. Cognitive therapy teaches you to rein in your extreme judgements. Think. Cognitive therapy helps you make more realistic and optimistic judgements, but it does not escort you out of the framework of judgement and into the framework of growth and change.

Self-Kindness

Just think that nobody laughs at babies and says how dumb they are because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned yet. (page 219). Maybe all we need is a little more self-kindness in the world and a little less harshness. We need to let time be our friend. We need to be more patient with ourselves and others. If we can interject that thought into the Thoughts of the CBT Triangle we get kinder feeling and behaviors.

First & Second Wave CBT

Third Wave Psychotherapy says “The “first wave” of behavioral therapies were characterized by behaviorism (i.e., operant conditioning, classical conditioning). Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck pioneered the “second wave” of behavioral therapies with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which integrated a person’s thoughts and beliefs in understanding and changing behavior and emotional experiences such as depression.”

We have a situation that comes upon us. We then have automatic thoughts about that situation. Where do these automatic thoughts come from? They come from some core beliefs and also from intermediate beliefs (rules or conditional assumptions). The next thing is that we have our reactions. These are emotional, behavioral and physiological. But what are the different types of automatic thoughts that one might have. A basic assumption behind CBT is that human beings aren’t particularly rational. We are not even mostly rational. We take shortcuts in our thinking and have habits of mind. This is discussed in the course Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining episode 4 of Amazon Prime’s Great Courses Signature Collection.

Common Habits of Mind

• Personalization – This is where we take it too personally, when in fact it had little to do with us at all. We believe that we were individually and specifically targeted.
• Magnification or minification. Do we ever lose perspective? Have we exaggerated a problem or minimized someone’s compliment or good deed towards us?
• Are we using a mental filter thereby using selective attention?
• What about all-or-nothing thinking? Black and white thinking.
• Mind reading is another habit we use. Sometimes when talking to someone and we are compelled to try to translate what they are saying to what they are really thinking and what their motives might be. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong.
• The last one on this list is fortune telling. Do we always try to predict the future? Are your predictions objective? If you are depressed then your predictions may be overly negative.

We all have these habits of mind and each of us has different preferences for each of these types of mind-habits to a greater or lesser degree. The idea here is to realize this and try to catch ourselves in these habits. The core beliefs under those automatic thoughts affect our habits of mind. The fixed mindset would say things like “if I don’t get an A on this test, I am a failure.” Tis is an example of the “rules of life” or conditional assumptions. Core beliefs are about yourself, the world and others. These three come from Beck.

If we are thinking about things in a certain way and these thoughts are having negative consequences, can we change how we think about things and change our thoughts so that the consequences are more positive? To analyze this we can use an ABCD diagram. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is based on the principle that the way we think determines the way we feel, and that’s the B to C of ABCD. A is Activating event (antecedent). B is Beliefs (automatic thoughts). C is Consequences (emotions and behaviors) and D is Dispute. Dispute is where we can change our thoughts in a fair rational and reasonable way. We can even think of ways to do things differently.