livingwithablackdog

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT is a psychological therapy, often offered for a brief time only while you learn the skills to carry on independently.  It involves a range of techniques and skills that when used together equip a person to change patterns of thoughts, behaviour, emotion and physical response.  It’s a technique that has been successfully applied to a wide range of psychological problems from depression and anxiety disorders, through to eating disorders and schizophrenia.  It has also been used more recently to assist people to manage physical problems like chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome and tinnitus.  Likewise it can be used for things like chronic stress or dealing with extended periods of grief when these are interfering with their ability to function.

CBT is a popular therapy and a range of therapists have various levels of training with it.  In my opinion the gold standard on most occasions is found in the Clinical Psychologist if it is among their services simply because they have generally spent more time learning about it and had more supervision in their training.  But this doesn’t mean that you won’t get excellent service from your Psychiatrist, who may have also have done some extensive training in CBT if psychotherapy is an area of interest, and likewise – another Psychologist, or another Mental Health worker or Counsellor.  If you live somewhere where you have a choice of counsellors and therapists – do your homework.  Find out about what kind of therapy the worker offers and ask about their training and background.  Because CBT is popular lots of people want to say they are doing CBT.  There’s a big difference between the worker who has done a workshop that they put into practice and the one who has done a post-graduate course with clinical supervision.

If you live somewhere isolated, can’t find someone to go to or can’t afford a counsellor or psychologist here are a couple of on-line courses that were designed by experts to help people learn CBT skills:

Mood Gym  http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome

Living Life to the Full  http://www.llttf.com/

Why not try one?