Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies

by Rhena Branch

A central concept in CBT is that you feel the way you think. Therefore, CBT works on the principle that you can live more happily and productively if you're thinking in healthy ways.

CBT encourages you to understand that your thinking or beliefs lie between the event and your ultimate feelings and actions. Your thoughts, beliefs and the meanings that you give to an event, produce your emotional and behavioural responses.

CBT involves identifying thoughts, beliefs and meanings that are activated when you're feeling emotionally disturbed. If you assign less extreme, more helpful, more accurate meanings to negative events, you are likely to experience less extreme, less disturbing emotional and behavioural responses.