The way we think powerfully affects our feelings and behaviours. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) CBT helps us to change our negative and anxious thoughts so we can feel and function better in order to improve our quality of life. Rigorous clinical trials prove CBT’s effectiveness.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an umbrella term for methods that share a focus on thoughts and behaviours that lead to problems, experimenting with new behaviours, and changing how we relate to our experiences. In CBT, we emphasize the practice of techniques and strategies between sessions to consolidate insights and strategies attained in treatment.
As evidence-based practitioners, we collaborate with our clients to design personalized treatment plans that often integrate a number of CBT approaches. These include:
- Behavioural activation
- Motivational interviewing (MI)
- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
- Mindfulness meditation
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
- Exposure and response prevention (ERP)
- Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)
CBT focuses directly on your problems and on enhancing your commitment to your values. Individual CBT programs are developed between therapist and client in a collaborative manner. Tools, techniques and strategies are designed to be flexible and portable so they can be used effectively between sessions. The goal of CBT is to help clients become their own effective therapists; practicing skills and strategies between sessions is a core component of CBT.
The spirit of our approach is active, compassionate and genuine. Whatever challenges you are experiencing, we’ll listen closely and do our best to work with you to develop a treatment plan that works for you.
What to Expect When Beginning CBT
Your therapist will assess your condition, make a diagnosis and design a treatment plan to help you achieve your goals.
We will talk about feelings, but never challenge them: they are always true. We do challenge thoughts, assumptions, beliefs and behaviours.
You and your therapist may discuss your past to better understand current problems, but CBT focuses on the present. CBT usually involves eight to 20 weekly sessions.
You will be asked to:
- Experiment with new ideas and ways to approach problems
- Challenge your old behaviours
- Engage in additional practice for about 30 minutes to one hour each day
What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based psychotherapeutic approach that focuses on engaging, encouraging and facilitating intrinsic motivation within the individual in order to promote behaviour change. It is often used as a part of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help people recognize, explore and resolve their ambivalence about behaviour change.
MI is focused, goal-directed and directive. Its purpose is the resolution of ambivalence and the therapist is very directive in pursuing this goal. Although originally developed to help people to overcome substance use problems, MI is now used to explore and enhance motivation for changing almost any behaviour.
MI understands and assumes that different people start therapy with different levels of readiness and commitment to change. The main goals of MI are to assess for readiness and commitment to change and to engage clients and encourage and promote their motivation to change.
The main features of MI include the ideas that:
- The therapeutic relationship is a collaborative partnership.
- It is the client’s job to resolve their ambivalence.
- Motivation to change must be generated by the client and cannot be imposed from the outside.
- Most of the information comes from the client.
- Arguing and persuading do not help to resolve ambivalence.
- The goal of the therapist is to be directive to help resolve ambivalence.
- Readiness to change can be affected by the right kind of therapeutic communication.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a form of psychotherapy and has been described as the “fourth wave” in therapy following cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Conceptually, ACT is based on the idea that psychological suffering occurs as a result of ongoing experiential avoidance, leading to psychological ridigity that prevents an individual from behaving in accord with their own core values. Rather than focusing on changing or challenging thoughts and emotions, ACT includes acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive defusion, values and committed action as the focus of treatment.
ACT incorporates traditional behaviour therapy techniques, including cognitive therapy and behavioural analysis. In addition, ACT introduces other techniques described as cognitive defusion, acceptance, mindfulness, values, and commitment methods. ACT differs from CBT in that the emphasis is not on thoughts, but on altering one’s relationship to one’s private experiences (including thoughts, feelings, memories and bodily reactions) to become “disentangled” from them.
The goal of ACT is to help clients learn to overcome ineffective behaviour patterns that prevent them from achieving a better quality of life. In helping clients to achieve their goals, ACT uses many approaches, including CBT as well as acceptance strategies, mindfulness techniques and values-based living. ACT is evidence-based and is supported by emerging evidence for effectiveness with anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, psychosis, eating disorders, smoking cessation and substance abuse.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation is a meditation practice that teaches us how to slow down to observe our thoughts with an attitude of neutrality. We learn and practice simply being present with our thoughts and emotions, without trying to change them. This ability to combine calmness with acceptance gives us greater opportunity for happiness, even when we never imagined it might be possible.
Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a program originally developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It uses the principles of mindfulness meditation to treat patients with both medical and emotional problems. Many people, even those without a medical diagnosis, have found that they are able to manage the stress in their lives much more effectively using MBSR, which has been found to be useful in the treatment of chronic pain, anxiety and panic, insomnia, fatigue, headaches, skin disorders and high blood pressure.
Mindfulness-Based
Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) helps people with depression and anxiety develop new ways of coping with depressive thoughts, distressing emotions, and anxious feelings so that they can feel free to live their lives. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a method of helping people to stay well following successful CBT treatment. It combines the philosophy and some of the approaches of CBT with MBSR to help prevent relapse.
What is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy?
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is an evidenced-based approach derived from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Intended to balance both acceptance and change in therapy, DBT focuses on helping individuals learn a variety of skills to cope with their psychological distress. DBT skills are especially helpful for individuals who are experiencing difficulties with emotional regulation (i.e. intense or chaotic emotions), impulsive behaviours, distress tolerance and acting ineffectively in interpersonal relationships.
DBT facilitates the use of cognitive behavioural, acceptance (i.e. mindfulness) and emotion-focused skills both in daily life and crisis situations. Although originally developed to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD), DBT skills can also be applied to a variety of other psychological difficulties, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and for individuals experiencing heightened levels of intra- and interpersonal life stressors.
