Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) changes negative behaviors
The reality is that many people will benefit from someone to “talk” to. Getting professional help from a counsellor fosters personal development and addresses and heals symptoms of mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, addiction, OCD etc.
Many people living with a mental disorder have optimal mental health and live prosperous and meaningful lives. On the other hand, many people without mental illness have poor mental health, do not satisfyingly manage to cope with difficulties and cannot enjoy life.
People are often feeling triggered in certain situations. Their “uncorrected” automatic thoughts might cause negative behaviors. Perhaps someone shows great anger, behaves aggressively, or abuses substances or food etc. When people change how they think about the trigger situation and make corrections in their thinking, they firstly feel better, and secondly will behave in an emotionally mature way.
Mental health is fluid – it varies throughout our life and under varying circumstances. A range of conditions influences our mental health, including our social life and economic situation. The great news is that appropriate therapies can treat mental disorders.
Pharmacological/psychiatric and psychological therapeutic interventions can successfully heal or control mental illness. Furthermore, therapy encourages recovery from mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
In collaboration with their mental healthcare providers, a psychiatrist or psychologist, individuals suffering from mental disorders can establish an effective treatment, which promotes recovery so that people can enjoy a meaningful life.
Patient-therapist relationship
The relationship between the patient and the psychotherapist is the key point of each psychotherapy method. It is through the relationship and interactions with the therapist that the patient learns about themselves.
Behavioural therapy
During psychotherapy and counselling the psychologist focuses on how learning takes a role in how humans develop both normal and abnormal behaviours. The therapist helps the client unlearn abnormal ways of behaviour and learn more adaptive ways to take their place.
Cognitive therapy
During psychotherapy and counselling the therapist emphasizes what people think rather than what they do. According to this school of thought, therapists assert that erroneous or dysfunctional thinking leads to dysfunctional emotions or behaviours. The focus is to facilitate patients changing their thoughts, which results in changing how people feel and what they do.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is based on the combination of Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Therapy. During psychotherapy, the psychologist facilitates adaptive, new ways of thinking which then will have positive impacts on behaviours.
CBT changes damaging thoughts
Based on the principles of Cognitive Behaviorla Therapy (CBT), we know that how we think about ourselves, situations, and the world we live in impacts our feelings and behaviors.
Aaron T. Beck (1976) identified automatic thoughts that are damaging to a person’s emotional wellbeing. He called them “thinking errors.”
Influencing the thinking process
Good psychological care includes noticing 10 negative automatic thoughts to challenge and refute them.
Negative cognitive behavioural thoughts 1-5:
1. All-or-nothing thinking (also called black-and white, polarized, or dichotomous thinking): You view a situation in only two categories instead of on a continuum. E.g. “If I’m not a total success, I’m a failure.”
2. Catastrophizing (also called fortune-telling): You predict the future negatively without considering other, more likely outcomes. E.g. “I’ll be so upset, I won’t be able to function at all.”
3. Disqualifying or discounting the positive. You unreasonably tell yourself that positive experiences, deeds, or qualities do not count. E.g. “I did that project well, but that doesn’t mean I’m competent; I just got lucky.”
4. Emotional reasoning: You think something must be true because you “feel” (actually believe) it so strongly, ignoring or discounting evidence to the contrary. E.g. “I know I do a lot of things okay at work, but I still feel like I’m a failure.”
5. Labeling: You put a fixed, global label on yourself or others without considering that the evidence might more reasonably lead to a less disastrous conclusion. E.g. “I’m a loser. He’s no good.”
Negative cognitive behavioural thoughts 6-10:
6. Magnification/minimization: When you evaluate yourself, another person, or a situation, you unreasonably magnify the negative and/or minimize the positive. E.g. “Getting a mediocre evaluation proves how inadequate I am. Getting high marks doesn’t mean I am smart.”
7. Mental filter (also called selective abstraction): You pay undue attention to one negative detail instead of seeing the whole picture. E.g. “Because I got one low rating on my evaluation [which also contained several high ratings] it means that I’m doing a lousy job.”
8. Mind reading: You believe you know what others are thinking, failing to consider other, more likely possibilities. E.g. “He thinks that I don’t know the first thing about this project.”
9. Overgeneralization: You make a sweeping negative conclusion that goes far beyond the current situation. E.g. [Because I felt uncomfortable at the meeting] I don’t have what it takes to make friends.”
10. Personalization: You believe others are behaving negatively because of you, without considering more neutral explanations for their behavior. E.g. “The repairman was curt to me because I did something wrong.”
11. “Should” and “must” statements (also called imperatives): You have a precise, fixed idea of how you or others should behave, and you overestimate how bad it is that these expectations are not met. E.g. “It’s terrible that I made a mistake, I should always do my best.”
12. Tunnel vision: You only see the negative aspects of a situation. E.g. ”My son’s teacher can’t do anything right. He’s critical and insensitive and lousy at teaching.” (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Basics and Beyond, Judith Beck, 2011)
The role of Cognitive Behavioural Therapyst
During counseling sessions in India, damaging automatic thoughts become evident and are discussed to make corrections. Over time, clients become quite skilled at catching their negative automatic thoughts and making their own corrections. Through this process, self-esteem is repaired, resilience is built, and as the negative internal dialogue turns more positive, feelings of confidence and a sense of well-being emerge. With our psychotherapy services in India, clients receive structured guidance, while counseling services in India ensure compassionate support tailored to personal needs. Many also benefit from individual therapy sessions in India, allowing them to deepen their self-awareness and strengthen long-term mental health.
Counselors and psychotherapists agree that the following guideline developed by Beck help clients evaluate their thinking:
- Examine the validity of the automatic thought
- Explore the possibility of other interpretations or viewpoints
- Decatastrophize the problematic situation
- Recognize the impact of believing the automatic thought
- Gain distance from the thought
- Take steps to solve the problem
Useful cognitive behavioural questions to ask
According to Beck, these are some useful questions to ask when negative automatic thoughts come, so that a reality based balanced perspective can emerge.
1. What is the evidence that supports this idea?
What is the evidence against this idea?
2. Is there an alternative explanation or viewpoint?
3. What is the worst that could happen (if I’m not already thinking the worst)?
If it happened, how could I cope?
What is the best that could happen?
What is the most realistic outcome?
4. What is the effect of my believing the automatic thought?
What could be the effect of changing my thinking?
5. What would I tell _____________ [a specific friend or family member] if he or she were in the same situation?
6. What should I do?
Behavioural psychotherapy facilitates the process of thinking in a healthy and balanced way. The essence is to speak to yourself kindly, just like you would to a trusted friend who was struggling with a self-doubt, failure, rejection, a mistake, or a break-up.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a structured, time-limited, and directive approach employed in treating various personality and personal issues, psychological disorders and mental health conditions, including
- depression
- generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
- social and specific phobias
- panic disorder
- obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- personality disorders: borderline, narcissistic
- bipolar disorder
- eating disorders: anorexia and bulimia
- addiction
- anger management
- chronic pain
- marital conflicts
- grief and loss
Culture and Language Factors in Counselling
Dubai counts among the most diverse countries in the world. Someone seeking counselling services might wonder about cultural and linguistic factors that play into the therapy session. Some people feel most comfortable in their native language. In such a case, a German patient would want to seek the services of a German counsellor in Dubai. It is not only the language that can be important, but is can be that a client wishes to speak to someone from their own culture.
Being from the same culture, in many instances, can increase common understanding of values and ideas. It might also be that someone is from a specific culture and intentionally chooses a counsellor from a different culture, as they might value the therapist’s country’s educational system and prominent schools of thought. An example for this could be someone who appreciates an American psychotherapist in Dubai, even though they might be from Europe, the Middle East, or Africa. Clearly, a patient can choose a counsellor who will meet their personal needs and requirements.
Patient-therapist relationship
The relationship between the patient and the psychotherapist is the key point of each psychotherapy method. It is through the relationship and interactions with the therapist that the patient learns about themselves.
During psychotherapy and counselling the psychologist focuses on how learning takes a role in how humans develop both normal and abnormal behaviours. The therapist helps the client unlearn abnormal ways of behaviour and learn more adaptive ways to take their place.
During psychotherapy and counselling the therapist emphasizes what people think rather than what they do. According to this school of thought, therapists assert that erroneous or dysfunctional thinking leads to dysfunctional emotions or behaviours. The focus is to facilitate patients changing their thoughts, which results in changing how people feel and what they do.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is based on the combination of Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Therapy. During psychotherapy, the psychologist facilitates adaptive, new ways of thinking which then will have positive impacts on behaviours.
Transformation Trough Counselling/Psychotherapy
At some point in our lives, we may appear at a crossroads knowing some change is needed but being unsure about the form and extent of change we are ready to embrace. Whereas a transition is more of a straight path from one step to another, transformation involves an intense change.
Psychotherapy is effectively for various psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, phobias, bipolar disorder, OCD but also for personality disorders and dependencies. Usually, the treatment focuses on one person’s life. In the marriage psychotherapy the subject of the proces is the relationship of two people who found themself in a crisis. Marriage psychotherapy is an effective method helping the couple to overcome their differences in the relationship protecting the family from disintegration.
Psychotherapy aims to support people through a substantial change that helps them develop, grow, and, eventually, change their life.
Objective of psychotherapy and counselling
The main objective of the psychotherapy is the sustainable, enduring change. The person gains an insight into his uniqueness, developing awareness of his specific skills and talents facilitating the way to “be yourself”.
While sustainable change is the main benefit, there are many other worthwhile outcomes of the transformational journey, such as:
- Gaining awareness about person’s assumptions, fears, dreams, talents, cultural stimuli
- Shifting to an empowered perspective and mindset
- Realising that we are part of the society, and that proper growth can’t happen in isolation.