CBT is a form of talking therapy which can help an individual to understand the often complex interplay between cognition (thoughts), behaviour, physical sensations and emotions. Although CBT primarily looks at the ‘here and now’ often there is a benefit of looking backwards to get some context and understand where our typical ways of interpreting the world and how we respond to it have come from. Understanding how our beliefs, attitudes and assumptions influence how we think, feel and behave can provide clients with a framework to understand their difficulties and gain a sense of control over their experience. From this theoretical framework, a CBT Therapist will develop a plan of therapeutic treatment to target specific areas of a person’s experience using evidence-based strategies and techniques to help a person overcome their difficulties and move towards their therapy goals.

Often life can get on top of us and can be triggered by a wide range of situations e.g. work, relationships, family life or just trying to get through the day. Often there might be many triggering situations or times we feel a wide range of emotions- sadness, anxiety or panic, anger or just a general flatness- it can also be that for some people there appears to be no trigger- perhaps objectively ‘life is good’ but they don’t feel ‘good’ and can’t make sense of why- this in itself can then bring about feelings of guilt and shame when seeing others in what seem like more difficult situations.

What is very common however, is that whatever the trigger or lack of, we often respond in the same sorts of ways- we might self-criticize, over-think, notice uncomfortable thoughts and feelings of resentment, anger, anxiety or persistent low mood. Other times, we may feel completely numb or as if on ‘auto-pilot’. We might find ourselves behaving in ways which we know are unhelpful and repetitive, we might lash out, disengage, ‘do nothing’ or keep so busy that we are on the brink of burn out.

Physical changes can also indicate psychological distress; this might be disturbed or excessive sleep, fatigue, digestive difficulties, pain or a feeling of being on high alert a lot of the time with adrenaline seeming to spike and rarely subside completely.