According to Cognitive – Behavioral Therapy, the emotional reactions that a person displays to various situations shape up, due to the interpretation and the meanings derived from these situations. This view is based on the fact that our thoughts affect our feelings, physical reactions and our behavior, when faced with a situation.
CBT says that, generally, the events themselves are not the reason for negative feelings which lead to sadness and worries. Our emotions and reactions are affected by our interpretation of the situations. For example: when a situation is interpreted as bad and dangerous, we may feel threatened, worried, sad or angry. We may feel tense and go into defensive. On the other hand, when we judge a situation as positive or pleasant, we may feel comfortable and happy reflecting on the body as peaceful. How we perceive and interpret a situation is mostly related to what we have learned in our past lives. However, our thoughts may not always reflect the reality and this may be the basis for the situations that we face difficulty. CBT helps people reevaluate and change their thoughts and interpretations.
The main aim of CBT is to go over the daily matters, making the client aware of the biased and dysfunctional thoughts taking basis from old experiences and take the client to a sequence of change in his thoughts and acts. In this trip, the therapist and the client work collaboratively questioning, searching and discovering the experiences and the thoughts of the client. The therapist helps the client in achieving realistic and new views of life by the help of various scientifically proven methods. The final aim of the therapy is to prepare the client to the post therapy period, when the client becomes his/her own therapist achieving certain skills in helping himself/herself. For this reason, an important part of this period consists of some homework and exercises done outside the therapy sessions.
In a well structured format, CBT sessions last about 50 minutes once a week but this can be rearranged according to the arising needs, after a discussion with the client. Although CBT covers a large scale of problems, it is a scientifically proven therapy approach especially on panic attack, exam anxiety, relationship problems, phobias, grief, post traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
