Our therapists offer cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in Paramus, NJ

My go-to approach for helping people in cognitive behavioral therapy is using multiple tools to provide psychoeducation to clients about understanding the connections between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and helping them practice how to use these tools. I find the best benefit in working collaboratively with clients to help them increase their insight about thoughts that are impacting their mental health and working together to practice challenging these thoughts!

There are many topics that can be explored in cognitive behavioral therapy. Some examples include the following:

• Cognitive distortions: This involves exploring and recognizing specific thought patterns that our thoughts may fall into, which are unhelpful or inaccurate types of thoughts.
• Core beliefs: A concept that helps to identify beliefs that we have about ourselves, others, or the world around us, and how these beliefs play a role in our thoughts.
• Thought log: A tool to help practice recognizing unhelpful thoughts and challenging them.
• Reality testing: Exploring how accurate or valid our thoughts are to help understand when we can't trust our thoughts if they're not fully based in reality, but in hypothetical situations.

I know a client is making meaningful progress in cognitive behavioral therapy when they share that they're able to recognize their thoughts more clearly and know which of their thoughts are accurate and which ones aren't!

Clients can supplement their time in cognitive behavioral therapy with thought-journaling exercises to try to improve their insight into their thoughts and how their thoughts affect their emotions. Clients can ask their therapist for suggestions about how to do this if they'd like!

To prepare for their first cognitive behavioral therapy session, an individual can write down some of the main issues they've been experiencing with their mental health and what goes on in their mind when they're not feeling well mentally. For example, if a client is depressed and often notices thoughts such as “The world is a terrible place. I don't know if things will ever get better” or if a client has anxiety and thinks “Something bad could happen at any moment. I feel like I'm never truly safe.” Any insight would be helpful for your therapist to know!