Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence-based approach that looks at how thoughts and beliefs influence action and feelings.  CBT has long been used to help people identify problematic behavior or emotional regulation patterns and remediate them by developing more adaptive mindsets and coping skills.  The compassionate CBT approach suggests that maladaptive coping skills and mindsets are skills and mindsets that once were useful and have since become outdated.  

Simply, often in our history (or even at present), experience is too overwhelming to deal with, and we come up with behaviors and thoughts that help us deal with one or several similar experiences. This way of understanding our environment and responding to it works for the time. However, as time passes these old ways of coping (including our thoughts and behaviors) often stop helping us and can complicate new experiences.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps us look at these thoughts and behaviors and find new ones that help us to live a less stressful and more successful present.