Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a practical, goal-oriented, interactive process for creating significant and lasting change in one’s life. This therapy has been developed upon the basic premise that the way individuals perceive situations or events influences how they feel emotionally. It is not the situation itself, which directly affects how a person feels, but rather an individual’s thoughts during, and about, the situation. When distressed, people often do not think clearly, and their thoughts may become distorted in some way.

CBT helps people to identify their distressing thoughts and to evaluate how realistic these thoughts are. It also examines limiting or distorted beliefs and attitudes that may accompany such distorted thinking. They then learn techniques to change their distorted thought processes. When people think on a more realistic level, they feel better, and are able to function more effectively. The emphasis is on solving problems and initiating beneficial behavioral change; people are able to make changes in their lives by simply changing how they think about situations, without having to delve into the reasons why the change is occurring.

Our CBT programs emphasize the active participation of clients in the process of change; the therapy is viewed as something they participate in, not something that is done to them. As such, clients are responsible as well for the outcome. We encourage our clients to set their own specific goals for the therapeutic process, to have in mind how they would like to be doing things differently by the end of the process, whether it is in their professional or personal life. We supplement sessions with assignments and/or readings to facilitate our clients’ learning from the session work, and we encourage our clients to work outside the sessions to put the strategies and techniques they have learned into practice in their everyday life.