CBT: Your Guide to a Fresh Perspective
Vulnerability is hard. In her amazing TED talk, Brené Brown discusses at length the power of vulnerability and the fear it brings up within us, despite all the wonderful ways being vulnerable allows us to grow and heal and become our best selves.
When it comes to talk therapy, summoning the vulnerability to share our fears, emotions, doubts, and traumas can feel daunting. We all fall prey to certain cognitive patterns that keep us rooted in fear. Managing symptoms related to PTSD can provide a bit of a challenge in that way, since stress tolerance levels can be significantly thinner for people who have experienced significant trauma, compared to those who have simply had a bad day and need to process certain events in a safe environment.
The great news is, these negative patterns that keep us rooted in fear can be safely examined, processed, and healed through the power of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — or CBT, for short.
CBT is a form of psychotherapy, developed by Dr. Aaron Beck in the 1960s, that enables an individual to identify and cope with mental strains or challenges related to negative views about the world and about oneself. Since its conception, CBT has been one of the most effective practices in psychotherapy, helping people to not only understand themselves better, but process and move through feelings and limiting beliefs that inhibit them from living their best lives, confidently and to the fullest.
Approaching CBT can look differently for everyone, depending on the approach that needs to be taken. While working with a patient who is suffering from PTSD, a therapist can focus on different avenues of thoughts or behaviours that reinforce patterns of negative beliefs about the self or of the world.
The mind and body are innately connected, through what we feel both cognitively and physically. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy emphasizes becoming aware enough to identify thoughts and behavioural patterns in order to intervene on a cognitive level, in order to make healthy changes and choices that ultimately leave us feeling much better about ourselves.
When we have negative thoughts about ourselves, others, or the world we can get caught up in big emotions tied to limiting belief systems.
Another way to look at it is like being swept down the current of a river. What we want to do is get on the river bank and observe the thought traveling down the current. We need distance from the thought and to separate (or diffuse) ourselves from the thought. But, sometimes the relationship between thoughts and emotions we are navigating are so big that it’s difficult to steer over to the river bank. In order to do that effectively, we need to learn to acknowledge, observe, and change our emotions (through methods such as Distress Tolerance or Mindfulness techniques). Once that is underway, Then it’s possible to examine our thoughts and beliefs.
For example, “I’ll never make it to the riverbed, the current is too strong” becomes “This current is strong, but with some effort I know I can make it.”
By examining our feelings and outlook on life, CBT encourages radical acceptance in the form of who we are, exactly as we are. It is the difference between seeing the glass as half empty or half full — Regardless of what we might perceive, there is still a glass in front of us with water in it.
Recognizing the glass of water for what it is relieves us of the anxiety, pressure, and stress we are experiencing related to a certain perspective. If you regularly drive a car, a familiar experience is being cut off by a seemingly impatient driver. However, was the driver who cut you off in traffic just being a jerk? Or was he frantically on his way home to tend to a medical emergency being experienced by a loved one?
We can’t know. But recognizing the situation for what it is gives us the grace to keep going on with our day, unaffected.