CBT: A collaborative approach to help you build positive mental health.
Evidence-based talk therapy strategies can transform how you think, how you feel, and how you live.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?
Mental health struggles might not be visible like physical illnesses, but they can be every bit as challenging to cope with. According to 2022 data from Statistics Canada, over 5 million Canadians over the age of 14 met the diagnostic criteria for a mood, anxiety, or substance use disorder within that past year.
Even more concerning, a large portion of these individuals felt they had unmet health or mental healthcare needs to address these disorders. Sadly, this noticeable gap in care can leave many people feeling hopeless about their situation. Mental health disorders rarely resolve on their own, and they may even become more debilitating over time without proper treatment.
One of the most widely used tools available today for tackling mental health issues is cognitive behavioural therapy. It’s an evidence-based form of talk therapy with structured strategies to modify harmful thought patterns and behaviours.
A closely related type of therapy is dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT). Dialectical behavioural therapy uses cognitive behavioural therapy’s focus on personal development as a jumping-off point to work on interpersonal relationship skills as well.
How Does Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Work?
Within the cognitive behavioural therapy framework, the client and therapist work collaboratively to identify issues and work towards solutions. Together they’ll examine the cognitive experience of the client and delve into their internal core beliefs, automatic thoughts, and behavioural patterns.
The foundations of this process relies on the trust developed in the therapeutic relationship between a therapist and a client, reinforcing comfort and a non-judgemental space for clients to express deeply personal experiences and thoughts. This will help the therapist gain a deep understanding of their client so they can pick up on harmful negative thinking and gently guide them towards more beneficial ways of viewing and reacting to their environment.
This period of change generally occurs over 5-20 sessions for full therapeutic transformation to take place, though it can be shorter or longer depending on each individual’s situation. The end goal of this treatment is for the client to become empowered and self-aware. They should be able to calmly view their thoughts and correct any errant patterns that cause them harm.
Is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Right For Me?
Cognitive behavioural therapy can help with a wide range of issues, but it still won’t be the right fit for everyone. It tends to work extremely well for individuals who are motivated to improve their mental health through behaviour management and thought process reframing as well as commitment to follow up on actionable steps given by their therapist.
It involves self-examination and learning new strategies. These are skills that can serve clients for their entire lives, but it has to come at the right time. Anyone suffering from immediate and severe mental illness may need crisis intervention first, and certain people may respond better to cognitive behavioural therapy in combination with medication and/or paired with other therapeutic modalities, as is often done at Supportive Therapy.
Another component of suitability for cognitive behavioural therapy also comes down to personality and personal preference. Anyone who is highly resistant to change, struggling with motivation, or who has significant trauma from their childhood may not have the desire or capacity to tackle their issues in such a direct way just yet.
It’s normal to feel slightly agitated or uncomfortable during sessions, which is why your therapist at Supportive Therapy will do check-ins around goal improvement and success and how the client feels strategies may or may not be resonating with them.
How Can Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Help?
When cognitive behavioural therapy is a good fit, it can be one of the quickest and most powerful ways of improving mental health outcomes. This often makes it cost effective, time effective, and a rewarding experience for both the client and therapist.
Negative thought patterns exacerbate any mental health struggle, so learning to identify and correct these patterns is a key outcome needed to reshape a client’s lived experience. Many people take their thoughts as unquestionable truth, so false or exaggerated thoughts can create a painful perception of the world where it becomes impossible to thrive.
Learning how to distinguish reality from distortions creates a more stable baseline for mental wellbeing, and it allows clients to self-correct when old patterns remerge.
Schedule a Free Consultation
Cognitive behavioural therapy takes work, but it’s worth every ounce of effort. We work to set you up for success in and out of sessions by equipping you with coping mechanisms that look at restructuring difficult thoughts and behavioural patterns. Schedule a consultation If you’re ready to take control of your mental health.