Change Your Thinking offers online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a type of psychotherapy, through a range of video modules and worksheets produced by PAM experts to help people improve how they feel and behave.
CBT aims to help people manage their problems by changing their unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviour. It is most successful in treating anxiety disorders and depression but can be helpful for other mental health problems too.
CBT helps you understand how your thoughts affect your feelings and behaviour. It also teaches you how to replace dysfunctional thinking patterns and behaviour with more positive ones.
What is the Basis of CBT?
CBT is founded on the idea that our thoughts determine our feelings and behaviour. Our negative thinking patterns affect how we feel and consequently, how we behave. If we don’t do anything to challenge these negative thinking patterns, we can become trapped in a vicious cycle of our dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
Cognitive Methods of CBT
Cognitive-behavioural therapy comprises different techniques many of which focus on irrational thinking patterns. These cognitive techniques help the person gain a sense of control over their anxiety.
One of the central problems of anxiety are negative automatic thoughts. These unhelpful thoughts increase uneasiness and reduce the person’s ability to manage anxiety. Negative automatic thoughts are hard to control, as they arise instantly when a person thinks about the anxiety-provoking situation. This happens because the brain has become hardwired to think negatively. One of the goals of CBT is to train the brain to think in a new way; to identify and replace negative automatic thoughts with more realistic ones.
Over time, a determined practice changes the neural pathways in the brain until replacing negative thoughts with positive ones becomes automatic and a person begins to think, feel, and behave differently.
Behavioural Methods of CBT
The most commonly used behavioural technique in CBT treatment is systematic desensitisation or exposure training. This method has been successfully used in treating phobias. It involves gradually exposing a person to fear-provoking situations until these situations cause less fear and anxiety. However, exposure to the situations whether it's in real-world situations or in vivo needs to be a gradual process, non-harming to a patient.
What Can CBT Treat?
Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a time and a goal-oriented approach to problem-solving. This psychotherapy has proven to be a particularly effective treatment for anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, and depression. However, CBT can also be a helpful treatment for other mental health problems, such as:
bipolar disorder
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
borderline personality disorder (BPD)
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
eating disorders, such as bulimia and anorexia
psychosis
schizophrenia
sleep problems
substance use problems
anger issues
relationship and intimacy issues
Furthermore, CBT can teach you helpful ways to manage some long-term physical health problems such as chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, or chronic fatigue.
How Does CBT Work?
In cognitive-behavioural therapy, the focus is on learning. CBT is a present-oriented approach. That is, rather than focusing on your issues from the past, this psychotherapy focuses on your current problems. During CBT, you need to recognise your dysfunctional thinking patterns, learn new ways of thinking and replace negative beliefs and behaviours with more constructive ones.
CBT Therapy Sessions
CBT sessions can be delivered in various forms. PAM Assist provide CBT in various formats including an Online CBT course, Telephone CBT, CBT sessions via Zoom as well as Face too Face sessions. Access to CBT and it’s different formats is dependent on our agreed service with your employer.
Throughout the CBT sessions, the therapist will help you to identify your problems and look at them piece by piece, i.e. to break them down into their parts such as your thoughts, emotions, physical feelings, and actions. You and your CBT therapist will then analyse these components to identify the dysfunctional ones and the effect they have on your well-being.
After analysing your unhelpful or unrealistic thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, your therapist will help you find a strategy to modify them. Also, he or she will give you “homework” and ask you to practice these changes in your day-to-day life. This is the final aim of CBT – to teach you to apply the new coping skills into your everyday life.
The Benefits of CBT
Research has shown that cognitive-behavioural therapy can be effective in treating some mental health problems, particularly anxiety, depression, and phobias. One of the main advantages of CBT is that can be completed in a relatively short period. Furthermore, CBT teaches you coping strategies that you can use in your daily life long after therapy is over. Also, CBT is highly structured, which means that it can be delivered in person, online, individually or in groups.