Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Improve Your Coping Skills

We all face challenging problems and situations at times in our lives, and many of us lack the coping skills needed to help us through these times. Psychotherapy, which is also commonly referred to as “talk therapy,” “therapy,” or “counseling,” is a form of treatment that focuses on helping people deal with difficulties that arise.

One of the most commonly recommended types of therapy is called “cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).” You may wonder how CBT or any type of therapy can help; after all, if your child has an alcohol or drug addiction, your spouse decides he or she wants a divorce, or you are suffering from chronic pain, therapy can’t change those things. What CBT can do is help you learn to look at things differently and make choices that will improve your quality of life.

What is CBT?

“CBT is an active, time-limited, structured approach that is helpful for a variety of emotional and medical disorders. CBT is the fastest growing and most rigorously studied form of psychotherapy around the world,” explains Susan Evans, PhD, professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine. “CBT is based on the central principle that thoughts have a profound effect on our mood and behavior and that changes in mood and behavior can be produced through changes in thinking.”

CBT primarily focuses on the “here and now.” A typical course of CBT lasts from 12 to 24 sessions. The patient learns skills in each session and then practices the skills as “homework” between sessions. The patient and therapist set specific goals to work toward.

How CBT Can Help

CBT has been widely studied and been found to be highly effective for a wide range of emotional and medical conditions. For example, CBT can produce significant improvements in mood and function in patients with depression and anxiety.

Patients coping with a medical illness can also benefit from CBT because it can help to alleviate pain and suffering.

For example, CBT is widely used with patients who have cancer, neurological disorders, gastrointestinal problems, and pain. Patients suffering from a physical illness benefit from CBT because, often, they are able to reduce the distress that stems from errors in their thinking, including exaggerating the sense of threat and anticipating negative and even catastrophic outcomes.

It’s not unusual for someone who has chronic pain to think, “This may never go away,” or “I can’t function like this.” In CBT, this patient will learn to correct what may be an overgeneralization (“I can’t function like this”) in their thinking and sort out what is realistic (“Even though I have pain, I can do some things”).

Patients with chronic pain may also develop coping skills to better manage their pain. Behavioral coping strategies may include relaxation and breathing techniques. Learning and practicing skills to manage the suffering related to pain can also give the patient a sense of increased self-efficacy (“I can do something to alleviate my suffering”).

What’s Unique About CBT

What differentiates CBT from other types of therapy is that it is based on the “Cognitive Model”—the idea that mood and behavior are largely determined by the way people perceive situations. Other types of therapy, such as insight therapy or psychodynamic therapy, focus on exploring the patient’s beliefs, emotions, and past experiences, often from his or her childhood, in order to help the patient access his or her unconscious feelings and thoughts. Long-term psychodynamic therapy may go on for a period of two or more years. Dr. Evans notes that there are several key aspects of CBT:

• It is time limited
• It requires the patient’s active participation
• It is goal-oriented and problem-focused
• It teaches patients to identify, evaluate, and respond to dysfunctional, negative thoughts
• It uses a variety of methods to change thinking, mood, and behavior.

There are no “rules” that dictate who can benefit from therapy, but it’s worth exploring if you frequently feel depressed, anxious, frustrated, or dissatisfied with your life.

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