How CBT Works

CBT can help you to make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. This makes it easier to see how they are connected and how they affect you. These parts are:


* A Situation - a problem, event or difficult situation


From this can follow:



* Thoughts
* Emotions
* Physical feelings
* Actions


Each of these areas can affect the others. How you think about a problem can affect how you feel physically and emotionally. It can also alter what you do about it. There are helpful and unhelpful ways of reacting to most situations, depending on how you think about them.

For example:

Situation: You've had a bad day, feel fed up, so go out shopping. As you walk down the road, someone you know walks by and, apparently, ignores you.


Helpful & unhelpful
Thoughts: He/she ignored me - they don't like me He/she looks a bit wrapped up in themselves - I wonder if there's something wrong?

Emotional:
Feelings Low, sad and rejected Concerned for the other person
Physical: Stomach cramps, low energy, feel sick None - feel comfortable

Action: Go home and avoid them Get in touch to make sure they're OK


The same situation has led to two very different results, depending on how you thought about the situation. How you think has affected how you felt and what you did. In the example in the left hand column, you've jumped to a conclusion without very much evidence for it - and this matters, because it's led to:


* a number of uncomfortable feelings
* an unhelpful behaviour.


If you go home feeling depressed, you'll probably brood on what has happened and feel worse. If you get in touch with the other person, there's a good chance you'll feel better about yourself. If you don't, you won't have the chance to correct any misunderstandings about what they think of you - and you will probably feel worse. This is a simplified way of looking at what happens. The whole sequence, and parts of it, can also feedback like this:

cbt

This "vicious circle" can make you feel worse. It can even create new situations that make you feel worse. You can start to believe quite unrealistic (and unpleasant) things about yourself. This happens because, when we are distressed, we are more likely to jump to conclusions and to interpret things in extreme and unhelpful ways.


CBT can help you to break this vicious circle of altered thinking, feelings and behaviour. When you see the parts of the sequence clearly, you can change them - and so change the way you feel. CBT aims to get you to a point where you can "do it yourself", and work out your own ways of tackling these problems.


Source: http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthin ... s/cbt.aspx

if any one interested in doing their homework online ( not therapy) this is a free website that you can
use to do your exercises.
www.fixmythinking.com I have created this site so people can do their homework online.

its 100 percent free and we don't sell you anything. However, it is not meant to be used as therapy.
simply doing your homework.

Hope that you find it useful
thanks

Hi,

Here is some documentation (CBT information and self-help tools) that helped me a lot. It's mostly about agoraphobia, panic disorder and social anxiety (which was what I had) –but I think some of the practical tools can help reduce anxiety in general... Anyway, here it is:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0P-ZDY ... sp=sharing

(Forgive me for any english mistakes in the above file, it's a translation and I'm not bilingual...)

Good luck all !

WtW

P.S. I hope it's OK to post this link (as all of it is free, and respects copyright). I didn't find a rule that said it wasn't, but if I missed something, feel free to delete this!

Hi!

I am really interested in the topic of CBT, any useful information would be great!