What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Why Should I try it?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) by definition is the use of psychoanalysis to alter behavior. It is a part of modern psychology and does not focus on the root of behavior as would Freudian Psychoanalytic theory. Instead, CBT focuses on practical, behavior modification through self-analysis and habit changes. Originally developed to heal depression, this psychotherapy works by helping people change their thoughts and patterns of emotional reactions to solve a range of personal issues.
Our focus and the use of CBT in this and upcoming blog entries will be to help heal the stress of trauma from past relationships and change the symptoms we currently nurture and develop strategies to tackle our emotional problems. Most of the exercises I have become aware of are from a book titled “Reclaiming Life after Trauma. Healing PTSD with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Yoga,” written by Daniel Mintie and Julie K. Staples. In the text, the authors define Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) in this way,
” Threats to our well-being trigger the body’s “fight or flight” response, an intense activation of the sympathetic nervous system that prepares us to respond to emergencies. Normally, once danger is past, the nervous system resets to parasympahetic functioning. Parasympathetic activity, sometimes called the “rest-and-digest,” is the opposite of fight or flight. The parasympathetic returns us to baseline, allowing us to relax and resume our usual lives. Trauma can interfere with this reset to baseline. PTSD might be viewed as a disorder in which the nervous system gets stuck in fight or flight. Days, weeks, or even years after the trauma we remain stressed and hypervigilant. We are unable to relax, to sleep well, or to experience positive emotion.”
If you have experienced any trauma that has carried over, reading that definition might have caused you to hyperventilate a tad. The truth is, many of us are walking around suffering from PTSD and have not even begun to address how we can change our fears, behaviors, and reactions to help improve our lives. Though this kind of treatment is usually guided by a therapist, the authors, therapists, and scientists themselves have alluded to the fact that once someone is willing to follow the instructions and perform the exercises, he or she can successfully use their text and see resulting changes. As an adventurous self-development agent, I am willing to apply the science and experimentation to my own life to see what changes I can ignite in my own life.
Now, if you have been a fan of any work I have done for a while, you will have come across numerous examples of me preaching that we can change our thinking and change our lives. And since science has backed up the positive thinking, positive life theory by showing us that the brain develops new neuropathways to facilitate our new ways of thinking, I don’t think I need to do much convincing as to why I believe CBT will work. Instead, I will take a stab at explaining my understanding of how CBT works in very lay man’s terms. So, the premise behind this treatment is our thoughts and perceptions affect or better yet influence our behavior. Once trauma is introduced, our perceptions and emotions tend to become warped and we see the world through threatening and negative ways. CBT practitioners assert that if we are able to identify the thoughts and beliefs that are negatively affecting us, we can use strategies to gently redirect, remove or remodel the thoughts based on a more accurate image of reality. This type of therapy has been used to address many disorders and mental health issues.
Ok, so now that you know what it is, I am going to share the three steps that the authors of the aforementioned text and possibly many therapists use to help their patients heal. Mintie and Staples call it experimentation, in which we view our bodies and minds as laboratories. They encourage us to get into the habit of observing, measuring, and through various exercises and experiments, modifying negative and dysfunctional beliefs and thought processes. One such behavior modification technique is called “striking a deal,” in which the participant locates the negative emotions and finds the cost-benefit ratio and then uses bargaining with the brain to create a new and better deal. Of course, this is a simplified explanation of a more complex process, but I find the exercises in the text simple and actionable, making them fun to do and share.
I will link the text I am referring to below, but I must be transparent here, if you do purchase the book through the link, I get a small fee, as it is an affiliate link, which I do through Amazon and not the text. That means I am not promoting the book because I am paid to do so, but I bought the book and have been using it successfully to heal my own trauma, so I thought to share.
In conclusion, our minds are very powerful and the thoughts we think direct our emotions. By becoming aware of what we’re thinking, the situations that cause us to feel and react the way we do, we can essentially find the things that prolong and trigger our trauma induced negativity and fix them, with scientific precision. I don’t know about you, but that excites me as a self-development and science enthusiast. If you are unfamiliar with my writing on self-healing and need more information, check out my last post by clicking this link.
You may also find my Group useful, it’s a group for Black women needing a sacred space to discuss and heal from relationship trauma. Click on Sacred Sistah Circle to be taken to the group where you can request to be added.
Until next time, be well.
Click the image to buy your copy of the text.
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