Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)
This is another talking therapy.
It is often just called CBT.
CBT works by looking at how we react to events and tries to deal with the negative thoughts that some people with mental ill health have.
It is very popular form of therapy at the moment.
It is like behaviour therapy but also looks at people's thoughts and feelings as well as their behaviour.
CBT developed out of behaviour therapy but unlike behaviour therapy looks at all the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, fantasies, memory, perceptions, problem solving skills that people have. These are collectivly called 'cognition'
CBT looks at the meanings we give to things that happen. CBT suggests that people are disturbed by the meanings given to an event not the event itself.
For instance, we may see someone we know in a shop. If that person ignores us, we may run various possibilities through our mind. We may think the person was in a hurry and did not have time to stop. We may think the person ignored us on purpose. The meaning we attach to the event will determine how we feel and behave.
Example
She ignored me.
She must be in a hurry/or missed me.
I feel OK/neutral.
I’ll say hello the next time I see her.
She ignored me.
She does not like me/she's avoiding me.
I feel upset/rejected.
I’ll ignore her the next time I see her.
CBT states it is not the event itself, but how we feel about it that is important. The way we think will affect the way we feel, the way behave and the way our body responds.
Emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression often come from negative thoughts. Therefore, emotional disorders can be helped by changing these negative thoughts.
Not every individual who has a learning disability will be able to make use of this therapy but there are increasing numbers of successes using the CBT model.