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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

CBT is the most commonly used psychotherapy in the world.

CBT aims to empower people to manage their own mental health by changing small things in their lives. Because success breeds success, CBT progress helps the person to grow  confidence and wellbeing.

It is really important that the therapeutic relationship is warm and equality based. The client and therapist together will search for understanding, try to get to the bottom of problems and jointly figure out creative ways of getting around them.

 

What CBT can help with

CBT has been tailored to deal with many problems: anxiety, depression, OCD, panic attacks, phobias, weight loss, eating disorders, grief, smoking, and so on.

 

What CBT does

CBT therapy encourages clients to take hold of their power and to make small movements away from ‘stuckness’. Even when we are very upset, we can always do something small for ourselves. That is empowerment.

When we feel slightly better, we can reflect better, become aware of, and change patterns that repeatedly make us feel low. CBT encourages us to be more mindful and to speak in a compassionate tone to ourselves. All of these steps have a powerful impact on our mental health.

 

how effective is CBT

CBT is a powerful resource when it is part of a respectful, safe and warm therapeutic relationship. That is a relationship where the therapist engages with the whole person of the client.

Self-seem and mental health will improve by using focused self-help interventions that target patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour.

 

Is CBT therapy different from counselling?

No. It is one therapeutic resource that any counsellor, with training, may integrate into their own way of working.

There are 400 different therapeutic approaches to choose from! Some counsellors are trained in CBT only or choose to work primarily with CBT.

Counselling prioritises the establishment of a warm collaborative relationship. Interventions, including CBT, follow that.

 

Why is CBT so popular?

Well, it is well researched, practical, and focused. It helps therapists to structure their work with clients. It has recently become a buzz term in the media and on the tip of the public’s tongue. CBT therapy is criticised though for offering apparently simple solutions to complex human problems! On the other hand, people often like the self-help aspect of CBT.

In my  clinic in Kerry, I find clients enjoy CBT’s structured tasks when combined and balanced with open dialogue and body-based interventions.

 

Will CBT work for me?

If you feel seen, empowered and that you are leading the therapy, then yes, CBT may work for you.

Using Worksheets, journaling, nuggets of wisdom, and many other homework takeaways support this well.

 

CBT does not suit everyone

CBT is often ‘done’ to a client who rightly feels unmet as a result. The relational human connection piece is often disregarded and seemingly cold protocols are implemented in time-limited and pressurised medical and psychotherapeutic contexts.

Academic reviews of CBT performance in the past decade state that too much emphasis has been placed on thinking and behaviour aspects of people’s problems and far too little on the power of the basic therapeutic relationship on a human level.

 

Why Choose Audrey for CBT

Well, firstly I am an accredited CBT therapist. I will make you feel safe physically, socially, and emotionally so that we can collaborate in finding the solutions that you are seeking.

My work is done in a holistic way, integrating CBT with body, psychological and creative interventions.