Is Cognitive Behavior Therapy Right for You?

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Maybe you’ve been considering starting therapy. Maybe you’ve already been in therapy. Maybe neither of these is true, but you’re curious about what therapy is all about and whether it could help you improve your life.

Therapy shouldn’t be mysterious. It shouldn’t have complicated explanations that the average person can’t understand. It shouldn’t go on for years and years. It shouldn’t become a part of life. For most people, it should be short-term.

When you’re in therapy, your therapist should explain each step along the way. At every session, they should help you solve your problems and work toward your goals. They should teach you specific techniques and skills. They should help you decide what you want to do between sessions to improve your life.

That’s the overall objective: to improve your life. The kind of therapy I’ve just been describing is Cognitive Behavior Therapy—CBT, for short. CBT has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for a wide range of disorders ranging from common mental health concerns like depression and anxiety to medical conditions like migraine headaches and chronic pain.

CBT is based on the idea that the way that we think about our experiences influences the way we feel and behave. But it’s not about “positive thinking,” which has become a buzzword in the health and wellness community. Instead, it is about thinking about things in a more accurate, more helpful way. Of course, many of our experiences are objectively negative or upsetting. In that case, CBT helps people solve problems, accept reality, and/or learn skills to tolerate their distressing emotions better.

On the other hand, some people feel worse than they need to. This happens when they have unrealistically negative thoughts about their experiences. CBT therapists can then teach them skills to evaluate and respond to their thinking, so they can feel better and act in a way that’s in line with their values and aspirations.

But maybe you don’t have a health or mental health condition and just need some help with a practical concern, like improving your time-management skills, or being more assertive. CBT can help you with everyday problems such as lack of motivation, procrastination, relationship issues, parenting difficulties, stress, anxiety, anger, insomnia, overweight—and so on. CBT therapists can help you learn new ways to think about the problems in your life and teach you skills to help you be the best version of yourself.

If what you’ve read so far makes sense to you and you think you’d like to give CBT a try, the next step is to find a CBT therapist who either practices or is able to provide telehealth services in your location. Unfortunately, many therapists claim that they practice CBT, when they really just incorporate some CBT techniques into their practice. Unless the therapist is practicing CBT holistically, you can’t be sure that you are receiving a treatment that research has demonstrated to be effective. Ask the therapist lots of questions about their background and training—and whether they’ve been certified in CBT by a reputable training organization.

And if you’re still undecided, there are lots of books, websites, and blogs (like this one!) where you can learn more about whether CBT might be right for you.