Benefits Of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Anxiety

Symptoms of anxiety can be stressful to navigate, especially on your own. If you are experiencing chronic anxiety, or if your anxiety is getting in the way of your everyday tasks, you are likely looking for a solution to the stress.

If you have never tried therapy before, or you do not think therapy works for you, you just might not have been introduced to the right kind of therapy for you, yet! That is what the professionals at MyTherapist are setting out to change: the stigma behind therapy. Therapists everywhere are trying to set therapy as the standard for practicing mental well being, and therapy can benefit many people rather than only those with a diagnosed mental illness. With that, it is important to understand that there are different types of therapeutic approaches.

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to therapy. Each practice will likely have its own opinion about how things should get done, and each therapist will have a different approach for their client relationships. Let’s focus on one school of thought: cognitive behavioral therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) aims to evaluate and often try to change the way you think. Those who practice CBT believe that your thoughts have the power to inform your actions, your feelings, and your choices.

With cognitive behavioral therapy, most people will try to rewire the way that they think about certain habits, choices, relationships, and beliefs. It often encourages people to challenge the ways in which they have been operating cognitively up until this point.

With even just a slight reframing, people are often able to change their relationships with their thoughts and are therefore more able to regulate their emotions and choices.

Why for Anxiety?

Anxiety is often the product of overthinking about those future things which are out of your control. Symptoms of anxiety can be due to a mental illness, genetics, environmental factors, etc. When anxiety becomes a problem for your well being, finding a method in which you can begin to control your emotions can seem almost impossible. With cognitive behavioral therapy, you may be able to get one step closer to a better relationship with your mind.

Similarly to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, some people might experience Obsessive Compulsive Thought Disorder, which simply indicates the obsessiveness of a particular thought or group of thoughts. A person with OCTD is less able to regulate their cognitive behavior, which can often cause anxiety or other mental health struggles.

When you work with a cognitive behavioral therapy approach, you will likely be encouraged to change your language to describe the things that are inducing anxiety.

For example, if you are anxious about your career and frequently say “I am going to get fired, I’m not good enough,” your therapist might encourage you to say instead “This job might not be well suited for me, I might consider evaluating my skills to figure out where I have the most potential for growth.” Being able to put a positive connotation on things that bring you anxiety is one of the primary ways that cognitive-behavioral work can benefit you.

To find out more, seek professional counseling from those who practice cognitive-behavioral therapy.