This therapy, which is one of the psychotherapy schools that we frequently use in the sessions, and which is called CBT for short, has been scientifically proven to be effective in a wide range of problems and in the treatment of many psychological disorders. The basis of this therapy school is the assumption that our thoughts, that is, the way we perceive and interpret events, affect our emotions and behaviors.
According to this school; The thoughts that cross our minds, our beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world cause an emotion in us. For example, if we think that we are a good manager, the emotions we feel as a result of this thought may also be positive emotions that make us feel good. But if we feel that we are not good managers and are quite inadequate, then our feelings may change. Positive emotions can be replaced by feelings of sadness, helplessness, and guilt.
The part that we take action after these feelings we feel is our behaviors. We can display a behavior with the wishes and messages that our emotions convey to us. We can try to calm ourselves down in a place where we feel anxiety, try to escape from it, or increase our anxiety by immersing ourselves in catastrophic scenarios. Or we may engage in unhelpful behaviors together with negative feelings such as unhappiness and pessimism brought about by our thoughts that we are inadequate.
This is where cognitive behavioral therapy comes in. It starts from our dysfunctional thoughts on the journey of regulating and changing our emotions and behaviors that affect our functionality and cause personal distress. It states that the person’s psychological problems and disorders are caused by our dysfunctional thoughts that we have learned and reinforced through our past experiences. Re-evaluating these dysfunctional thoughts and replacing them with more realistic and more functional thoughts leads to changes in emotions and behaviors. With cognitive behavioral therapy, we learn new behavioral skills to solve problems and discover emotion regulation methods. We gain a new multidimensional perspective towards our problems, ourselves and our lives.
