Therapeutic Approach - Cognitive-Behavioral ("Cognitive Therapy" or "CBT")

Cognitive-behavioral treatments and modalities are incredibly broad in scope and also enjoy, apart from the pharmaceutical, the broadest empirical affirmation in terms of research into effective treatments. What follows is a description of CBT from the National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therpists.

"[Cognitive-behavioral therapy] is an approach to counseling that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. Cognitive-behavioral therapists teach that when our brains are healthy, it is our thinking that causes us to feel and act the way we do.  Therefore, if we are experiencing unwanted feelings and behaviors, it is important to identify the thinking that is causing the feelings / behaviors and to learn how to replace this thinking with thoughts that lead to more desirable reactions."

Cognitive therapies tend to be more brief and structured than traditional talk therapies. CBT utilizes the concepts of behaviorism and the very broad field of the cognitive sciences (information processing models of cognition, linguistics, information sciences, complex adaptive systems theory, neurophysiology, etc.).

Depression or Anxiety

Deviating slightly from the NACBT description above, I will elaborate in terms of problems like depression or anxiety.

While a "healthy brain" is difficult to describe, we do know that there can be neurophysiological alterations in brain function related to certain psychological problems. So, there may be something beyond "our thinking" that can act as the ultimate cause of certain psychological disturbances (i.e., heredity, substance use, trauma, etc.).

It is more proper to say that the way we think or believe (which is really what much of cognition is about) may be the proximate cause of our problems but is just as likely to be a factor that maintains a given problem, like depression or anxiety.

Not surprisingly then, a great deal of evidence supports the fact that such problems are treated most effectively and in a more long lasting way with a combination of drugs (when their severity indicates drug therapy) and psychotherapy.

On the whole, when compared side by side, psychotherapy as a stand-alone treatment tends to have longer lasting effects than drug therapies.

Key Concepts that Underlie CBT