Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

 

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) was developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s, while he was a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania. Through his work, Beck became convinced of the impact that thoughts had on an individual. He developed a cognitive therapy which focuses on the way a person is thinking. It deals with people's thoughts and behaviors and the impact that they have on that person. Instead of focusing on working back to a person's past and childhood, cognitive therapy focuses on the thoughts that the person is having at present.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of talking therapy which can be used to treat people with a wide range of mental health problems. CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior), all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts determine our feelings and our behavior.

During his work as a psychiatrist, Beck began to see that his depressed patients tended to have negative thoughts. This is what set him on the path to discovering how a person's thoughts impact their behavior. Therefore, negative and unrealistic thoughts can cause us distress and result in problems. When a person suffers with psychological distress, the way in which they interpret situations becomes skewed, which in turn has a negative impact on the actions they take.

CBT aims to help people become aware of when they make negative interpretations, and of behavioral patterns which reinforce the distorted thinking. Cognitive therapy helps people to develop alternative ways of thinking and behaving which aims to reduce their psychological distress.

Beck believed that if you could challenge the person’s negative thinking and replaces it with better thoughts; you could have a positive impact on the health of the individual. While this work started with depressed patients, he found it to be successful in helping many other issues as well. For example, cognitive therapy is now used to help eating disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, anger, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

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