What is CBT?

CBT is a form of psychotherapy.

Over the last twenty years Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has become an increasingly popular approach for helping people with a wide range of mental health problems. There is mounting research evidence for the effectiveness, of CBT. The research shows that our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect the way we feel, which can then cause us to behave in certain ways. This cycle can become a vicious circle causing great distress. The aim of CBT is to break this circle by teaching people to recognise their unhelpful beliefs and to change them to more balanced and realistic ones (not just positive thinking) and to modify any unhelpful behaviours that are helping to keep this damaging cycle going.

CBT will give you a toolkit of self-help skills you can use throughout your life
In therapy you will work alongside the therapist to gain an understanding of your problems and discover the most effective techniques for overcoming them. This will involve a lot of practice of these skills outside of the session, as with any new skill the more you practice it the quicker you learn and the faster you benefit from it.

CBT has been shown to be effective in many studies for a wide range of problems e.g. in What Works For Whom by Roth and Fonagy (1996), a review of psychological treatment and in the Government’s National Service Framework (NSF) for Mental Health, (DoH 1999) as the treatment of choice for many problems.