Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help you break bad habits and bring lasting change to your life. Are you wondering “How does CBT work?” or if CBT is right for you? Read below to learn more about this evidence-based approach to mental health.
We all have habits. Start the day with coffee? Check. Take your shoes off when you get home from work? Check. Watching the news every day? Check.
Some habits are helpful, like brushing your teeth or walking your dog. Some not so much, like having dessert every day or spending hours on social media.
Some habits we don’t even know we have – like taking the same route to work every day, or biting our nails in a stressful meeting, or reaching for chocolate when your ex calls. You know what else is a habit? The way you think.
Really! Some of it is conscious, some of it is not (see examples above.) How you think, what you think, and how you respond are habitual.
We all strive for a happy, healthy life, so what if we told you that changing your thinking can change your life?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a form of therapy that encourages reassessing patterns that create uncomfortable, stressful, or destructive outcomes by identifying your triggers, thoughts, and actions, so you can manage the consequences.
Here’s a benign example: Let’s say you have committed to reducing your expenses. For the last year, you’ve gone to Starbucks nearly every day for a Venti latte. You decide this is an expenditure you can cut. But, every day you also drive right past the Starbucks. What happens?
The same process can happen with alcohol use, spending, relationships, eating, and even depression and anxiety. You may think you are helpless to this cycle.
You are not.
CBT gives you the skills and knowledge to understand how you think, how you typically respond, and how to change your actions at any stage of the process. And it’s a process that can be achieved in as little as a few months.
The truth about CBT is that you already have access to everything you need to create the peaceful, harmonious life you want. The bonus is that CBT helps you achieve a lifetime of happiness, without taking a lifetime to achieve it.
Therapy Lab is an evidence-based therapy platform offering treatment packages to help adults, teens, children, and families meet specific goals. With an upfront timeline, we prioritize structure, efficiency, and results. We measure clients’ progress as we go and apply science-based principles such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to the therapy process.