Online CBT Therapy

Perhaps the most important principle in CBT, is the idea that it is not actual situations in our lives that determine how we feel; it is our interpretation of them. This is not to invalidate emotions that come from ‘bad’ experiences, but to empower you to change the things you can. Imagine a friend walked passed you in the street and didn’t acknowledge you. You might think “do they think they’re too good to speak to me in public?” and perhaps feel hurt and annoyed. Another interpretation might be “I must have done something wrong and upset them” and feel anxious. Yet another might be “they obviously didn’t see me and probably have a lot on their mind right now” and feel relatively okay. The different interpretations of the same situation lead to different feelings. Different thoughts and feelings lead to different behaviours, which can reinforce the initial unhelpful thought.

CBT is NOT about positive thinking, but it does aims to help you identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts that may be leading to unnecessary negative emotions and behaviours.

CBT is typically a brief, time-limited therapy. To ensure we make the best use of the time we have available, sessions are structured using an agenda (a plan of what to discuss in the session) which is set out together at the start of each session. This generally helps us stay focused on the problems and goals at hand. We encourage you to think of things you would like to add to the agenda between our sessions, but don’t worry if you’re unsure of what to add, especially at the start of therapy. 

Much of the emphasis in CBT is on how things currently are in your life, and how you would like things to be in the future. That is not to say that the past isn’t important; it is, and it does have an effect on how we are today. However, CBT takes the stance that when you find yourself suffering with any mental health problem, it’s a bit like you’ve fallen down a hole, and you might feel a bit stuck. When you start therapy, we join you in the hole and suggest we have two options in terms of how we spend our time together:

1. We focus on discussing and speculating why you fell down the hole, and going over how awful, upsetting and dark it is down there (all the meanwhile staying down the hole).

OR

2. We spend the majority of our time working out how to get out of the hole and taking action to do so. Then, once you are out of the hole, we spend our time figuring out why you fell down in order to prevent it happening again in future.

Which would you prefer?

CBT maintains that is important in the early stages of therapy to have a clear and shared understanding of what the problem is, simply because it is a good place to start to overcome it. It is also important to have defined goals at the outset, otherwise therapy would be like setting off on a journey and not knowing where your destination is, you could end up driving all over the place, going around in circles and never really achieving anything.

In CBT both therapist and client are seen as responsible for change. A good way of explaining this is by using the analogy of the therapist as “coach”, and the client as the “sportsperson”. Based on their own training and experience, a coach is able to support and guide the sportsperson into achieving their goals. However, the coach can not play and win the match for the sportsperson. In view of this, ‘between-session tasks’ or homework tasks are usually set each week to enable you to implement some of the strategies learnt while still in therapy. These tasks are considered very important for improvements to effectively occur.