In any given year, around 1 in 4 people in the UK will suffer from a mental health problem. Given that, it is important to understand the full range of treatment options that are open to us all. The first and most important stage is of course diagnosis, however after this stage of course comes treatment. An increasingly popular treatment is personalised cognitive behavioural therapy, often abbreviated to CBT.
What are the Aims of CBT?
To fully understand CBT, it is important in the first stage that we understand what the aims of this therapy are. In a nutshell, it is one of what is often termed to be “Talking Therapies.” Its aim is, through carefully structured dialogue between therapist and patient, to address and ultimately change negative thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours.
By highlighting the “personal” aspect of the therapy, we highlight the “personalised” nature of the treatment. In other words, this is not a one-size fit all strategy, and each therapy will be carefully tailored to each patient.
How does CBT work?
At its heart, CBT is based on the idea that negative thoughts and feelings can trap a person into a vicious cycle. This cycle of negative thought, like a snowball rolling down a hill, can gather momentum and force of its own accord until the negative thought cycle begins to dominate your other thoughts and feelings.
CBT aims to combat this spiraling, negative cycle by helping you to deal with the negative thoughts and feelings effectively.
What Can CBT be Used For?
CBT is mainly associated with combating depression and anxiety disorders, however, it also has applications across a range of mental heath conditions, such as:
- OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
- Phobias
- Panic Disorder
- Eating Disorders such as Anorexia
- PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
How Will I Receive my Sessions?
Typically within the NHS you will see your therapist for a face-to-face session once or twice per week. Each session will last between 30 to 60 minutes, and a typical course of CBT will run over anywhere from 5 to 20 sessions.
You will spend the sessions talking through your thoughts, feelings and even your physical actions with your personalised psychologist.
However, do you recall how above we mentioned that CBT is also often referred to as Personalised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and this meant that the therapy itself was carefully tailored to individual patients?
Well, currently this is having even wider implications on both access to and delivery of CBT, in a number of unlikely ways. For instance, we have seen the introduction of a Facebook chatbot that was able to deliver personalized CBT to people suffering from anxiety and depression.
Now of course, it must be stressed that no chatbot can in any way replace the diagnosis and treatment of a trained therapist or other medical professional. That being said, when used alongside a medical professional, it certainly opens up a new and wholly interesting way to deliver CBT to patients.
With CBT proving such a popular and effective treatment, anything that opens up access to it can only be a good thing.
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Photo: Getty Images
This post was part of a paid partnership.