What is it?
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CPT) is designed to correct both the behavior and self-perceptions of the person by destroying harmful patterns of behavior that have been ingrained in the mind. Cognitive-behavioral therapy specialists start from the premise that all people make mistakes and wrong decisions at some point in life. With a stable state of the psyche, the episode remains in memory as a life experience to be taken into account — and no more.
But sometimes the environment, relatives, or superiors focus so vividly on the failure that a person may develop a persistent fear of repeating the negative experience. Sometimes this leads to a fear of taking decisive actions in general, which can cause excruciating inner feelings, a fear of being rejected, and a perception of oneself as a failure — all of which trigger a vicious cycle of repeating erroneous or destructive actions.
The essence of CPT can be summed up this way: thought is material.
Who can benefit from it?
Indications for the use of CBT can be various addictions, eating disorders, increased anxiety, inability to control emotions, depression, and other psychological disorders that lead to general dissatisfaction with life in the absence of objective reasons.
A person can program himself or herself to fail as well as to succeed. What will be achieved is not as important as that self-perception after therapy shifts toward an adequate, calmly positive assessment of oneself and one's place in the world. The main goals of therapy include:
- Relieve the person from the symptoms of a neuropsychiatric disorder
- Minimize the likelihood of a recurrence of neurosis
- Eliminate the problem of interpersonal interaction
- Increase the effectiveness of drug therapy
- Destroy stereotypical behavior and attitudes
How does therapy take place?
The entire CBT process can be divided into four stages. In the first stage, the specialist helps the patient become conscious of what is happening and separate his or her own true feelings and thoughts from those imposed from the outside. Many people use the term "voices in the head" for this — when the person, without realizing it, "hears" accusations from an overly strict father or condemnation from an emotionally significant partner. Noting when such feelings arise and writing them down can gradually reveal the understanding of what thoughts are unconstructive, unnecessary, and only exhausting the nervous system without results.
The second stage is rationalization: each destructive thought is invited to be analyzed and given arguments. For example, in the presence of arachnophobia, the patient is encouraged to explain why spiders are not a real danger, taking into account the fact that he or she lives in a region where there are no poisonous spiders. In some cases, the patient and the therapist switch roles: the opposite situation is proposed, when the specialist names his or her problem, and the patient looks for arguments why it is contrived.
The third stage may be conditionally called a blocking stage. When a typical problem arises, the person simply forbids himself or herself to think and act in the usual way. He or she switches to other cases, reminding himself or herself that his or her anxiety, appetite attack or desire to hide from everyone is irrational and has nothing to do with the real world.
Finally, the fourth stage entails the fixation of "correct" behavior — numerous repetitions of the chosen attitudes, noting cases when in a difficult situation, the person behaved reasonably, not yielding to a negative pattern. Thus, the person's feeling of control over his or her life is strengthened.
How long does therapy take?
CBT requires a relatively long course — on average several dozen sessions — and in complex cases, the therapist works with the patient for years. It is important to understand that the patient will have to work on the therapy as much as the therapist, and not let the process take its course or assume that only the therapist is responsible for the results.
Are there any contraindications?
CBT is not a method for treating psychiatric disorders; they are corrected using medication. Moreover, when biochemical abnormalities arise, the person is simply unable to respond adequately to therapy. If serotonin reuptake is disrupted or there are other purely physiological pathologies, therapy can worsen the condition of the patient, who will inevitably encounter a feeling of helplessness for the condition.
