What is CBT?

Hey guys,

So it's Reuben here and I originally,

My post-grad was in CBT,

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

We're talking about traditional Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

I'm also an ACT therapist.

An ACT therapist has moved from the traditional CBT into what's called Contextual CBT.

Now I don't want to get too heady about that because this is a little intro to CBT and if there was a little tagline for it you could say,

You're not seeing the world,

You're seeing your thoughts about the world.

And so the big idea here is that we are caught up in this world.

It's like we're wearing tinted sunglasses and we've forgot that they're there and everything can look tinted,

Right?

If this dark and gloomy sunglasses like grey colour,

Right?

Then we are looking at the world from those.

So we assume that it is our reality.

So CBT means Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and the first behavioural therapy,

The first wave was around a hundred years ago and then the second wave which is the traditional CBT started in the 60s by Aaron Beck.

So the core insights here for CBT is that it's not just the event that creates suffering,

It's the story that our minds tell us about the event.

So again an example here could be like your friend doesn't text you back,

Right?

So they just don't text you back and your mind says something like,

What have I done wrong?

Maybe they don't like me,

Right?

And so we can spiral and the reality could well be that they were making dinner or caught up in something else,

Right?

But we have these different thoughts about it.

So CBT says thoughts are not facts.

That's often a thing that comes up,

Like thoughts are not facts,

Right?

And a large part of traditional CBT is working with thoughts to help us see how helpful they are and so CBT teaches you to be the lawyer,

So to speak,

Not the jury.

We don't just believe the witness,

We cross-examine it and so traditional CBT,

The question really for traditional CBT is about thoughts in terms of what is the actual evidence for this thought?

What is the evidence for it?

What's the evidence against it?

Am I catastrophizing?

Am I mind reading?

Am I thinking in black and white?

So traditional CBT,

Cognitive behavioral therapy,

I hope that's given you something to help you.

There's a lot of resources here on Insight Timer.

I hope you find something that suits you and thank you for being here and listening to this.

Take care and see you again soon.