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Cognitive-behavioral therapy has been the preferred treatment method for both clients and professionals because its principles are simple, sound, and effective. In this article, you’ll find out the three connected areas that CBT focuses on that allow it to work for so many different issues.
1. Thoughts
The vast majority of problems in our lives begin with the thoughts that pop into our heads. But, unfortunately, negative thinking patterns can become chronic and lead to cognitive distortion, which is a term that simply means that your thoughts and beliefs about reality become unrealistic and untrue.
There are countless different negative thought patterns people can have – sometimes, these thoughts can be polarizing and cause you to take an all-or-nothing stance on various things in your life, or you might have a tendency to overgeneralize or catastrophize, just to name a couple of common examples.
Changing the way you think by finding healthy and productive alternatives will be a critical part of CBT, but first, we have to examine how negative thoughts make us feel, which will be discussed next.
2. Feelings
However, while thoughts are the initial source of mental health problems, they are nothing without the feelings and emotions that they come with.
After all, without anxiety, anger, fear, and similar sensations, your thoughts wouldn’t have very much meaning behind them – they would just merely be thoughts. Nonetheless, when people have negative thoughts, it’s the feelings and emotions that drive them.
However, changing the way we feel isn’t as simple as deciding that you don’t want to experience distress anymore; there is one thing that needs to be addressed first before this can happen.
3. Behaviors
Lastly, in order to change the way we feel, we must alter how we respond to thoughts that contribute to the subsequent feelings and emotions that cause us to behave a certain way.
Our behaviors can condition the way we think and feel, and repeatedly doing the same method can perpetuate a vicious cycle. For example, if you have a phobia of dogs, the symptoms of fight or flight that appear when feeling fearful will naturally cause you to want to avoid dogs at all costs.
The avoidance provides a sense of relief and reassurance, but continuing to stay away from dogs also causes the fear to persist. By discontinuing the avoidance behaviors, you might feel a sense of anxiety, but over time, you will habituate, and eventually, dogs might not seem so scary anymore when you realize they’re not as dangerous as you previously believed.
Tying It Together
In CBT theory, your thoughts, feelings and emotions, and behaviors are closely interrelated, and this is often illustrated in the form of a triangle.
By addressing one of them, you subsequently affect the others, but typically, it’s easier to start with modifying your thinking and behavior patterns first since it’s not always practical to suddenly shift your feelings and emotions without starting elsewhere.
The interaction between these three aspects is a core principle for CBT, and it’s arguably the most important one, but if you’d like to learn more about CBT therapy, BetterHelp has additional resources for you to check out that can educate you further about this highly-effective treatment as well as how you can find professional who is experienced in treating others with this technique.
Conclusion
The reason why CBT is so potent and popular is that its primary method of helping people is very logical and practical. By working with a professional, you can identify the negative thinking and behavior patterns that are holding you back from feeling your best; however, if you’re already aware of what’s bothering you, you can still implement this approach on your own and see fantastic results in potentially a short period of time.
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As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.