9 CBT Techniques for Better Mental Health

Anxiety and depression are two powerful factors that fill your mind with negative thoughts. The disturbing or destructive thoughts spoil your mental health. Spoiled mental health impacts your life drastically and lowers your life quality. You start living in isolation and are an avid person because your mind is not good enough to manage the relationships. Thus the psychiatric issues make you dull, lifeless and irritating. So what to do now? How can you get out of this dangerous phase of life? Don’t worry, you’re not alone who is experiencing these difficulties. The busy and hectic life which is full of hard competitions is often affected by these types of challenges but the good news is that there is a way to cope with these mental health issues including stress and anxiety. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most effective way to get yourself out from the psychiatric dangers of mental health problems. CBT is an authentic technique to treat psychological issues with psychiatric treatment options. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a common form of talk therapy that helps you to get rid of negative destructive thoughts that influence your emotions and behaviors.

CBT techniques help you identify the deteriorative pattern of thinking that destroys your emotional response and behaviors. This technique also enables you to convert negative behaviors and emotions into positive and helpful patterns of thinking.

Now the question is how CBT technique changes your negative thoughts and emotions into positive ones? The answer is simple negative thoughts contribute a lot to worsen your mental issues like depression or anxiety. CBT technique helps you to change your negative thoughts into positive ones automatically. It also affects your mood and makes you a live person. It is the most effective therapy that gives you results in a short time. CBT not only connects your emotions, behaviors and thoughts but also teaches you how to control them.

In this article you will learn about 9 CBT Techniques that focus on providing you with tools to solve your current problems. You may also learn what types of mental issues these techniques address, and what to expect from CBT Techniques.

Types of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is not a single method of treatment but it consists of a range of approaches and techniques that solve the issues related to your behaviors, emotions and thoughts. Professional healthcare providers divide it into many types that range from self-help practice to structured psychotherapies. Some of these psycho therapeutic options are listed here:

Cognitive Therapy: This technique focuses on changing the way of your thinking patterns. It urges you to identify the distorted thoughts and emotions then convert them into positive patterns.

Multi-modal Therapy: This technique involves seven interconnected modalities that can help you address your psychological issues, including cognition, drug considerations, behavioral effects, imagery and sensation.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: This technique helps you identify your irrational thoughts and beliefs. You may learn how to challenge these beliefs and recognize the patterns to change them.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): This technique involves addressing of disturbing or destructive thoughts that can incorporate treatment strategies such as mindfulness and emotional regulation.

All these types prove that cognitive behavioral therapy and all techniques always target the underlying thought patterns that are the leading cause of psychological distress and emotional destruction. With different approaches, all CBT Techniques focus on addressing your mental health issues.

What Techniques are Best to Combine with CBT?

Professional CBT providers claim that CBT actually works on the patterns of your thinking that spoils your feelings and ultimately destroys your behavioral patterns and disrupts your quality of life. This technique is popular around the world due to its uniqueness and its feature of identifying the origin of your negativity that misleads your actions and emotions. Framing your thoughts in a positive manner can help you adapt positive behaviors and actions. CBT therapists know very well how to teach you to make changes and implement them in your life challenges. You can benefit from these skills throughout your life whenever you come across such psychological issues. 

In addition, when you experience any mental issues, look for different ways to approach CBT because you are different from others and it is not necessary that the one technique that suits your friend will also help you survive through the situation.

1. Identifying negative thoughts and converting them to new versions i.e the positive one.
2. Recognizing the daily life problems that put you at the edge of depression.
3. Learning to segregate destructive emotions and cut them out of your mind.

Your therapist usually uses the above mentioned techniques to identify the root of the curse and then starts to guide you to adopt the best strategy of CBT treatment option. Some common CBT techniques that therapist often prescribe include:

Cognitive Restructuring

This technique is the best way to reshape your negative thought patterns. This technique teaches you to learn about hardships you face while looking for the negative thought patterns. Using this technique urges you to over-generalize the worst situations and prevent you from placing too much importance on minor details of different matters of life. This may send you to adapt a self-fulfilling prophecy.

During this procedure, the therapist usually starts by asking about your thought princesses for certain situations. Once you get familiar with the origin of negativity in your thoughts  you start learning how to reshape your thoughts so that they may become productive.

Guided Discovery

In this technique, you are considered under observation for a few weeks where you are acquainted by the therapist. They try to learn about your point of view and convince you to challenge your beliefs and broaden your thinking approach. In case of a negative assumption which you have made, they ask you to prune out to verify your assumptions. The provision of evidence helps them to evaluate your mental deterioration. This how this technique enables you to observe things with a new and positive perspective.this leads to a path full of happiness.

Exposure Therapy

This technique actually covers the areas of your mind that are associated with the phobias and fears. You learn to confront your inner fears with the help of this therapeutic technique. In this procedure, your therapist exposes you to the things or situations that create phobia in you but they also teach you to cope with these situations that provoke anxiety and fears in your mind. This is a time asking procedure and can be done in small intervals. At last you become able to confront your fears boldly and more confidently.

Keeping Record of Your Thoughts

If you want to get in touch with your own thoughts and emotions, adapt the habit of keeping record in writing. In this way you not only enlist your negativity and positives but also can evaluate which of them you have got rid of and which of them you have adapted gracefully.

Your therapist may also suggest you to keep a record of new thoughts coming to your mind as well as new emotions you;re experiencing. Writing all the facts and figures will help you see how much progress you have made.

Behavior Activation and Scheduling Your Activities

Finding some activities that can help you promote positivity in behavior is an amazing way to put off your anxiety and fears. Enlist the activities that make your burden off. Follow the ways to schedule such activities to establish good habits. Try to get off the burden of decision. This may provide you amp;e opportunity to practice good habits.

Behavioral Experiments

Anxiety disorders often cause catastrophic thinking. These types of thoughts make you anxious. Behavioral experiments are one of the most effective CBT techniques that help you predict what happens before embarking on a task that creates chaos in your life. After applying the technique, you can check if the prediction is true. 

In addition, the technique a;so helps to enable you to evaluate that the predicted catastrophe may not be very likely to happen. You start building a positive mindset and experience a drop in anxiety while performing stressing tasks.

Stress Reduction and Relaxation Techniques

Deep breathing exercises, imagery and muscle relaxation are a few examples of stress reduction techniques. These techniques help you learn practical skills to increase your sense of control and lower stress. You can deal with your stressors, phobias, fears and anxieties by using these CBT techniques. 

Successive Approximation

You can break your overwhelming tasks into smaller ones to reduce the stress. It may help you achieve your goals feasibly. As you get success by achieving each step, your confidence builds up and leads you to the path of character and behavioral strength. You get bit by bit success and confidence through successful but smaller steps. 

Role Playing

This is one of the most amazing CBT techniques. It is considered best to learn how to work through different behaviors in potentially difficult situations. When you play through different scenarios and situations, you experience more strength and less fear. This CBT technique is also helpful in:

• Improving  your communication skills.achieving well-developed personality with confidence.
• Training with assertiveness.
• Improving your problem solving skills.
• Practicing social skills.

How is a CBT Session Helpful?

When you start CBT technique sessions, your therapist tries to understand the problem you’re going through. They may ask you some questions about your problems and experiences. Through the questioning session they actually make an estimation of how much a CBT session can help you to fight off your problem. After this procedure, your therapists make a plan to achieve the set goals. The salient features of your goals should be:

• Realistic.
• Achievable.
• Time-saving.
• Measurable.
• Specific or targeted.

Pity depends on the toe of your problem and your condition that which type of therapy will suit you. According to your condition, the therapist suggests group, family or individual therapy. 

Initially, your session may last for 50 to 60 minutes that happens once a week but the duration can vary for different individuals depending on their needs.

Your treason also includes some type of homework during your sessions. The homework may be in the form of some questionnaire, worksheets or journals. They can also give you some tasks to perform at home. Therefore, it is good to have an en conversation with your therapist. So that they can connect with you comfortably.

But the most important thing is to choose a therapist who has a professional degree in CBT techniques and enough experience for threatening the specific problem that you’re going through. Before finalizing an appointment with a therapist, make sure he is licensed and certified. You can take help from:

• Social workers.
• Psychiatrists.
• Psychiatric nurse practitioners.
• Psychologists.

You will start getting positive results after a few weeks. 

Your everyday problems need some therapy or techniques to be solved. CBT techniques help with different types of mental conditions when you get stuck in some difficult situation and feel helpless when trying to get out of that situation. CBT is the effective technique to cope with stressors that cause anxiety and depression and make you misfit for a normal social life. These techniques help you fight off several conditions, including:

• Anxiety disorders.
• Eating disorders.
• Depression.
• Tinnitus.
• Phobias.
• Bipolar disorder.
• Chronic pains.
• Sleep disorders.
• Sexual disorders.
• Addictions.
• Schizophrenia.

Risks Relevant to CBT Techniques

Researchers do not take CBT as a risky technique. But when you plan to have CBT sessions, some things must be kept in your mind, including:

CBT doesn’t work overnight. It is time for talking. Best communication between you and your therapist can lessen the duration. CBT often imposes some lifestyle changes that take time to be adopted.

Some people do not find it a pleasant experience and get upset. It is specific for everyone. 

Some types of CBT techniques put pressure and stress on you in the beginning. But after some time you get comfortable.

Conclusion

CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy, that is a short-term therapy that lessen your anxiety and depression. It directly affects your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and emotions. It also helps you to determine how your emotions affect your thoughts and as a result what type of effects appear in your social life. 

Different CBT techniques mentioned in this article are used to solve your problems. But it depends on the type of problem, then which one is suitable for you.