Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a way of talking about…

• How you think about yourself, the world and other people.

• How what you do affects your thoughts and feelings.

…and is a method of attaining mental well-being practised at Mandurah Psychological Services.

CBT can help you to change how you think (“Cognitive”) and what you do (“Behaviour)”. These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the “here and now” problems and difficulties. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.

CBT has been shown to help with many different types of problems including anxiety, depression, panic, phobias (including agoraphobia and social phobia), stress, bulimia, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and psychosis.

CBT may also help if you have difficulties with anger, a low opinion of yourself or physical health problems, like pain or fatigue.

The therapy involves exploring the past in order to understand how it affects the now. Working with the therapist a decision is made on what to deal with in the short, medium and long term. Each session commences with an agreement on what to focus discussion on for that day.

Going through cognitive behavioural therapy generally is not an overnight process. Even after learning to recognize when and where mental processes go awry, it can in some cases take considerable time or effort to replace a dysfunctional cognitive-affective-behavioural process or habit with a more reasonable and adaptive one.

CBT can be done individually or with a group of people.