Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps clients to put their patterns of thinking under the spotlight. It uses models and techniques to look at how your thoughts (cognitions) and behaviours feed into the perspective that you take on the things that happen around you. For example, if you believe ‘I am not good enough’ and someone at work does not make any comment after you have finished talking in a meeting, because of your belief system, you might think ‘they think I’m useless’ (when actually they may well have been thinking about what was in the fridge and what they might make for dinner that night!).
This is an immensely helpful tool for me to call on with most clients. Very often there can be resistance to letting things go, as the subconscious holds onto patterns of thoughts and behaviours to ‘keep you safe’. CBT can take apart the rationale for this, so that the client can look at it from a purely rational standpoint. Once clients can see that this way of thinking is not correct and doesn’t serve them, we then encounter much less resistance when trying to change these thought patterns.