Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT focuses on restructuring the thought patterns that cause your anxiety, overthinking, panic attacks, low self-esteem, or other concerns you may be experiencing.
Some of the CBT techniques we’ll use in our sessions include:
- Examining underlying thought patterns
- Identifying automatic thoughts
- Cognitive restructuring
- Core belief work
- Thought-behavior cycle awareness and monitoring
- Cognitive distortion work
- Learning how to regulate emotions
- Exposure techniques to gradually ease anxiety or practice new skills
- Behavioral experiment techniques to help you practice using CBT skills outside of session
- In-depth therapy work to address overarching patterns that we may discover, such as excessive self-criticism, suppressing your emotions or needs, perfectionism, avoidance, or others.
Our CBT sessions will typically involve:
- Reviewing recent triggering situations that occured for you and brought up feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, overthinking, panic attacks, or whatever else we may be addressing in therapy
- Identifying specific thought–emotion–behavior patterns to help you understand why you ended up experiencing so much anxiety or other concerns in the triggering situation
- Practicing cognitive restructuring techniques
- Targeting core beliefs
- Learning and applying behavioral strategies like gradual exposure or behavioral experiments
- Developing clear and practical tools that you can use outside of sessions
- Between sessions, we may plan specific strategies that you can use to help you solidify the concepts and skills we’ve been working on during sessions
Many people wonder if CBT is just about “thinking happy thoughts” or replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. The short answer is no, but it helps to go into a bit more depth to explain why.
Let’s go into this topic a bit more to understand why they’re actually very different.
If you’ve tried “thinking positively” as a way to cope with your anxiety, low self-esteem, or other concerns, you may have quickly discovered that it failed. Why? Because thoughts and feelings are like a building that is built on top of a foundation. If you have two or more decades of past experiences that have built up a solid foundation of negative core beliefs like “I’m not good enough”, “I’m too much”, “There’s something wrong with me”, “I have to be perfect”, “I’ll mess up”, “Nobody could love me for who I really am, so I have to constantly prove myself”, “Something bad will happen unless I’m constantly on guard”, etc, then thinking positively won’t help – it would be like trying to build a house without a foundation.
This is where CBT comes in. CBT intervenes at the foundation level to restructure the foundation of these core beliefs. Only after we’ve addressed the foundation, will you start noticing a difference in your thoughts and how you feel. CBT uses very strategic techniques to accomplish this.
Not at all. There’s very good reason why you have the thoughts and feelings that you have. CBT is based on the idea that your thoughts and reactions developed for a reason. They’re not flaws or mistakes. Many anxiety patterns, self-critical thoughts, and avoidance behaviors once helped you cope or feel safe. It was the best way your mind knew how to protect you. We honor the protective function of the thoughts and beliefs you’ve developed, while at the same time exploring and building healthier ways of thinking that will better serve you moving forward.
Starting therapy can bring up a lot of feelings – uncertainty, hesitation, even relief mixed with anxiety. That’s all okay.
A consultation is simply a chance to talk about what’s going on, ask questions, and see how it feels to connect.
You’re never locked into anything just by reaching out.
Elza Boycheva MS LMHC
Elza Boycheva, MS, LMHC
Licensed Mental Health Counselor
15+ Years of Experience
Hi! I’m Elza.
I know that right now it may feel like the distress you’re experiencing is consuming your life or in some way severely affecting important aspects of your life. It may feel overwhelming or insurmountable. You may wonder how things could ever get better. It’s a dark, despairing, and lonely place to be. But I’m here. I’ve worked with many clients who’ve felt these things, and through our therapeutic work have been able to attain results that were transformative and life-changing. I’m here to guide you through this process too.
One of my strengths as a therapist is my ability to quickly grasp the core of the difficulties that you’re experiencing, which then allows us to use very targeted therapeutic approaches to address your struggles on a deep and transformative level. Through our work together, you can get relief from the symptoms that you’re experiencing, restructure old patterns into healthier new ones, heal from impactful or traumatic past experiences, and learn powerful strategies that you can use in your life.
I know you want to have your life back. To thrive, to feel confident, to feel in-control, to feel at ease.
I’m here to help.
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