You may have heard the term CBT at some point and wondered what it means. CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is based on the theory that our thoughts can cause mood and behavior problems. In fact, there is something known as the cognitive triad which states that thoughts and beliefs influence emotions, and emotions influence behaviors. So, say you have the thought, “no one likes me.” This thought could create anxiety. The anxiety could influence how you interact with other people or even IF you interact with other people. In time, this could cause you to convince yourself even more that people don’t like you. So it is almost like it creates a negative feedback loop. A therapist can work with you using CBT to help redirect and reframe negative or self defeating thoughts. Essentially, a therapist can help you re-wire your brain to create new, more empowering narratives.

In addition to using CBT in therapy, I believe CBT can be useful in our daily lives when negative or self defeating thoughts come up. As a therapist, i provide clients with a whole list of questions to help deconstruct negative/self defeating thoughts or behaviors. There are two questions you can begin asking yourself when an automatic negative thought (ANT) comes up:

1) is this true?

2) is this helpful?

So, for example, if you have a negative thought come up that you are a failure, you can ask yourself if this is true? Are there examples or evidence of when you were not a failure? And then you replace it with, “maybe I did not do well at (insert what you feel you are a failure at here)this time, but I am good at many things.” You can also consider, “even if i did fail this time, is it helpful to call myself a failure?” I like to call this stomping the ants. We need to be able to rid or redirect the ANTS in order to maintain emotional wellbeing.

I find CBT so interesting! In addition to challenging your ANTS, CBT therapists teach clients about several cognitive distortions that humans have that can impact our thoughts and feelings. Here are a two cognitive distortions humans commonly have:

Jumping to Conclusions — Without individuals saying so, we know what they are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, we are able to determine how people are feeling toward us. For example, you may have noticed your coworker being quiet around you. You may have jumped to the conclusion your coworker does not like you when this is probably not the case.

Catastrophising- with this one, humans tend to always think the worst is going to happen. Example: you have a difficult test coming up. You tell yourself, “I will probably fail and get a bad grade in the class. I will probably end up losing my scholarship.” The antidote to this is decatrastophising. Example “I don’t feel prepared for this test, but with some studying i will probably do alright. Even if i don’t do well i have time to make it up.”

So, as you can see CBT is a great tool to begin developing a more positive mindset. CBT is known to be especially good for treating anxiety and depression. You can find a CBT therapist online simply by using CBT as one of your key words. You can also begin using some of the strategies discussed in this article. CBT can help you have more balanced thinking at the very least. You don’t have to become little miss sunshine all the time, but wouldn’t it be helpful not to always think the sky is falling like chicken little?