What Is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

By Author: Rob Parker
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Have you ever felt really depressed and stopped to think about why, and then realized that you experience these feelings on a regular basis? Depression is a pretty common affliction for people today, and it varies to different extremes. Some people might find that they become very depressed in very specific circumstances; that this feeling inevitably follows after certain events occur in your life. Many psychiatrists believe that the depression phase of the cycle can be avoided through various behavioural modification techniques, one of which is cognitive behavioural therapy. We will clarify and define this technique in this article.

An Example

In order to make the circumstances a little bit clearer, let's take a look at a common example of a depression cycle. Let's say a person in their job makes a mistake on an assignment, a mistake large enough to be noticed by superiors. Possibly this mistake will put the project behind schedule, thus backing everything else up. A superior informs the person of the mistake and the consequences. Now, instead of immediately getting to work on the corrections, the person focuses ...
... only on the mistake. He or she begins to feel that they can't do anything right, and that will lead to depression. While in this state of depression, similar issues are avoided resulting in more problems and a reinforcement of the idea that one can't do anything right; the cycle has now been created.

Cognitive behavioural therapy

What cognitive behavioural therapy seeks to do is change the initial reactions, or understanding, of the person in the above example. The process involves first identifying the negative reaction and then slowly replacing that with a reaction that is constructive and will not lead to the depression cycle.

In the above example, the catalyst which led to the depression was not the mistake; everyone makes those. Nor was it the fact that the mistake was addressed by a superior; that is the job of a person in charge of a project. Rather, the cycle started when the person who made the mistake felt that that mistake was ample evidence that they could do nothing right in their lives, it is this reaction and belief that the therapy will seek to change over time.

The problem with this type of reaction is that it is often rooted in automatic thoughts about themselves that have been formed in childhood. Cognitive therapy, therefore, can take quite a bit of time to be successful, and individuals using this form of treatment (and there are many different forms that it takes) must be prepared to work hard over a period of time for it to be successful. Nevertheless, the end results will be life changing.