Cognitive Psychotherapy: How to Understand Your Thoughts

In the life of every person there are periods characterized by emotional difficulty, the complexity of experiencing the event. The common behavior of people in this case – listen to the advice of friends, seek support from acquaintances, relatives. Often such behavior can not only not bring relief, but also harm a person. You may notice that in difficult life situations it can be difficult to think about anything. And even more so – find a way out of the current situation. It is more reasonable to address to the psychotherapist. Cognitive Psychotherapy – this is one of the directions addressed primarily to cognitive formations. Read on estet-portal.com about psychological ways to deal with stress.

Cognitive psychotherapy: definition and application

In the modern world, the number of depressive disorders is increasing. Recent trends in the study of this topic are characterized by the variability of symptoms of depression and the difficulty of diagnosis. This is due to an increase in stresses of a neuropsychic nature. This is especially true for people whose work contains a component of high responsibility (top managers, accountants of large companies, doctors, and so on). Cognitive psychotherapy originated as a method of psychological help for people with depression. The author of the method is Aaron Beck.

Beck's method of psychotherapy originated in the context of seeking help for those suffering from depressive disorders. The main concept with which the therapist works – automatic thoughts, beliefs.

Then the method was used for other types of violations if it proved to be effective. The target of influence in this case – maladaptive thoughts, beliefs, perhaps images. By identifying them, it is possible to significantly alleviate the condition of a person suffering from various dysfunctions (anxiety, phobias, hypochondria, etc.)

Cognitive psychotherapy: working with meaning

Specialists work on understanding the client's maladaptive thoughts and beliefs. At the same time, a person is stimulated to self-exploration of mental processes and cognitive development. It is necessary to accurately identify his problem. How to accomplish this task? Such formations are characterized by low awareness, inaccessibility and sufficient stability. This occurs due to violations of attention at the stage of traumatic experience or emotion. Work with automatic thoughts that arise in response to anxiety or a phobic state. Cognitive psychotherapy helps to find these deep wrong beliefs that cause depression and severe anxiety. For example, many people are familiar with such beliefs about themselves: "I am the worst"; "I can't do it because I'm not sure of myself." These beliefs can hide behind various automatic meanings. The task of the therapist – together with the client to identify them and find the cause of a particular problem.

The technique of questions is built from those that help to move towards poorly understood meanings. And those are already, as a rule, associated with the main problem. The main thing is to find a connection between maladaptive thoughts, associated emotions and behavior. Then there is a distance from the problem with the help of more realistic judgments. Also used is the client's verification of the reality of such judgments. It is very useful for the client to compare with other people with more difficult life situations. It is important to revive in such a person the ability to see the situation and himself in it from different angles. The person then argues: “If it’s harder for him than for me, but he manages, then I can handle it too.” And as a result, cognitive psychotherapy can help the client to find such maladaptive thoughts. It is also important to learn to control emotions and more adaptive behavior. Then the person himself copes with the new thinking, and sees opportunities to live differently.

The main thing in cognitive psychotherapy – through automatic thoughts, reach the main problem of the client, work it out with awareness by the person himself and move towards a more realistic understanding and construction of behavioral strategies.

You might think that everything is very simple. However, it is important to find a qualified therapist. It is important to ask in advance about his education, work experience. The key to success in any kind of psychotherapy – formed motivation to change the person himself. Often people can come to therapy under the influence of relatives.

However, until the person himself deeply feels the need to become different – the result may be ineffective. People who have more developed reflection and introspection tend to this type of psychotherapy. Negative beliefs against psychology can also play a bad role.

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