Our therapists offer cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in Philadelphia, PA

My approach to helping clients using CBT is to focus on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a negative cycle. CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts.

I teach clients the following tools in CBT:

• Cognitive restructuring or reframing: This involves taking a hard look at negative thought patterns and how to fix them.
• Guided discovery: This allows you to challenge your beliefs and broaden your thinking. You might be asked to give evidence that supports your assumptions, as well as evidence that does not.
• Exposure therapy: Can be used to confront fears and phobias.
• Journaling and thought records: Writing is a time-honored way of getting in touch with your own thoughts.
• Activity scheduling and behavior activation: Activity scheduling can help establish good habits and provide ample opportunity to put what you’ve learned into practice.
• Behavioral experiments: Typically used for anxiety disorders that involve catastrophic thinking.
• Relaxation and stress reduction techniques: Deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation.
• Role-playing: This can help you work through different behaviors in potentially difficult situations.
• Successive approximation: This involves taking tasks that seem overwhelming and breaking them into smaller, more achievable steps.

As a clinician, I would be evaluating clients' symptoms, measuring the occurrence of specific target behaviors, and assessing progress toward specific goals.

In between sessions, one might supplement CBT with self-monitoring will help clients develop an insight into their difficulties. You can also schedule activities that bring you enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment, recognize how your actions influence your thoughts and emotions, make the best use of your time, break down difficult tasks into more manageable or smaller ones, and face your fears gradually so they diminish.

One can prepare for their CBT session by doing the following: Make a list of goals and review them with your therapist, prepare yourself to be open and honest with your therapist, keep track of your progress in a journal/notebook, and ask your therapist questions and help create your goals.