Thinking, Feeling, Being
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is a widely used mode of talk therapy, historically highly effective in treating multiple kinds of disorders and illnesses.
Methods of relaxation, mindfulness, stress relief, and problem-solving are all cornerstones of CBT, but majorly CBT is about differentiating one’s feelings from their thoughts and behaviors.
CBT requires a patient to be willing to sit with their counselor, unpack their thought patterns, and examine what role they play in their own emotions and behavior. In doing so, a patient can reclaim their autonomy, and fully realize the power they wield over their lives and minds, freeing them from the confines of cyclical thinking and behavior.
A person is presented with an event, or interaction and that event or interaction spurs thoughts. Thoughts bring on feelings, and both feelings and thoughts inform behavior. These aspects of human behavior all work together as gears in a machine, and just as gears in a machine, they require maintenance and inspection.
“We can give the power of victory back to you, not just so you can escape the anxiety and discomfort of unhelpful ways of thinking, but to give you back the gift of full autonomy.”
Something a person may work through in CBT would be an interaction like this:
“This person stopped replying to my texts, so I’m thinking they don’t want to hear from me anymore. That made me feel horrible, so I’ve decided to un-match with them across my social media.”
Conflict — Thought — Feeling — Behavior
The rub of mental illnesses is that so often they aren’t symptoms of derangement or hysterical upset, they’re just clusters of unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
Context is what makes thoughts and behaviors maladaptive, though, and this is why it is hard to un-learn these ways of thinking and being.
Perhaps at one point, thinking in a preemptively defensive way once served the patient well in protecting themselves from emotional harm, and so now that’s the default setting on all of their thoughts, despite this behavior no longer serving them.
After a session of CBT, that same client may re-evaluate their interaction and present it again, having examined their own ways of thinking and feeling:
“This person stopped replying to my texts, so I can’t actually know what they’re thinking. I feel worried that they’ve rejected me, but maybe they have just found themselves really busy or something else is keeping them from replying just yet. I’ll give them some space, then try to reach out again and let them know that I’m thinking of them, worried for them, and that I would really like to hear back.”
There are plenty of ways maladaptive thinking seeps into our everyday lives and CBT can help untangle those thoughts, help differentiate between all three working components and give you a way of thinking and behaving that more consistently benefits you within the context of who you are now.
While we are young, particularly if we encounter trauma, we can develop unhelpful ways of thinking; all-or-nothing thinking (not allowing for grey-areas, compromise or nuance), overgeneralization (generalizing a concept based on one negative experience), mental filtering (focusing on negative aspects of actions while censoring out the positives), catastrophizing (worst-case scenario thinking), and many more.
What is common across all of these ways of thinking is that it leaves a person feeling powerless in their own lives, at the mercy of the whims of others, and that can feel a lot like constant victimization.
Unhelpful ways of thinking can suspend a person in long term anxiety, and a person may not even realize they have developed maladaptive ways of thinking until they have a CBT qualified counselor to sit and speak with.
CBT is about giving you, the client, the tools with which to conduct your own wellness, evaluate your own behaviors, and change the course of your life.
At Small Victories, we are uniquely well-equipped to conduct CBT, disentangle thoughts from feelings from behaviors, show you where the pitfalls are, and how to overcome them.
We can give the power of victory back to you, not just so you can escape the anxiety and discomfort of unhelpful ways of thinking, but to give you back the gift of full autonomy.
Knowledge of the self is paramount in healing and growing, and our CBT qualified counselors at Small Victories can help lead you to that place of inner-peace and mindful health, giving control back to you where it belongs.
When you’re ready to start the journey, give us a call. Let’s conquer this together.
Next Steps
Check out the Our Team page to learn about our therapists.
Schedule a phone consultation to chat about the intake process and schedule an appointment.
Grab a snack and own your small victory of seeking out therapy services.
