Full Circle Fridays|Week 3: Cognitive Behavior Therapy

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on negative thoughts and patterns or loops.  This treatment can be very helpful for people struggling with PTSD, anxiety, OCD, phobias, addictions, and other life-altering disorders.  CBT is designed to help you become aware of your destructive thoughts – to recognize the emotions and beliefs that are attached to those thoughts.  Awareness is always a key step, and namely for CBT, it must be first. 

So many Trauma Survivors are stuck in their mind, with dangerous thoughts about themselves, others, and the world at large.  Often coming in specific thought patterns – like waves – they are identifiable but appear to be justifiable.  Most survivors are battling the idea that they are to blame for their abuse.  Because of that, they tend to attack themselves inwardly. (Although some trauma survivors may also turn their behaviors outward to others.)  However, your actions don’t just “happen”.  Actions are driven by thoughts – whether created by or intruded into the mind.  Sometimes thoughts are coming from someone/somewhere else – something you maybe heard your abuser tell you over and over.  At some point, their words became a belief about yourself, and your mind is doing what the mind does.  The mind’s job is to look for dangerous and help keep you safe.  If your mind has the running thought pattern and belief that you are the danger, it will spend all day attacking you to keep you safe from yourself.  The same is true if your body and mind believe that the world as a whole is unsafe or that everyone is against you, for instance.  Your mind will spend a great deal of time trying to remind you of this truth that the world is unsafe, and therefore your thoughts can be found looping through thinking to try to save you from harm.  The mind is so wonderful because it truly does these things FOR you to keep you protected.  Outside of your abuse and trauma now though, these beliefs and thoughts are no longer helpful.  They have become maladaptive coping skills that you can appreciate your mind for using to save you but realize that they no longer serve you. 

Those are just some examples of how your thoughts can progress into thought patterns, which then can exacerbate anxiety or even create it.  An important part in the CBT process is to start challenging your thoughts by getting curious about them.  You can challenge your thoughts and fact check them for accuracy.  With CBT training under your belt, this resource will help you to be aware when you are thinking destructive thoughts and teach you techniques to pause and identify the legitimacy of these thoughts.  Even if they don’t feel untrue in the moment, there are other questions you ask of your thoughts. Firstly though, if they are untrue, you are able to process through the incorrect thought or idea and move forward.  If it seems true at the time you, you can also ask your thoughts: if they are necessary, does thinking this serve me, is this something I need to dwell on right now, is there another way I can frame this thought so it’s not so upsetting, etc.   Thought patterns - that maybe are years old and have deep rooted beliefs and emotions attached to them – can be difficult to identity as inaccurate.  This may mean realizing that your perception of current reality is inaccurate, and it can feel jarring to come to terms with the grandiosity of your negative thoughts.  This is a huge step in CBT technique training.  These thoughts are often linked to behavior patterns (often self-destructive and may be addictive) as if your mind has given you this attached behavior as a prescription to cure the thought.  However, we know this only sets you into a patterned loop again. 

This is where CBT is very useful with survivors who have a maladaptive coping skill of a dependency such as food, drugs, or alcohol, as well as anyone suffering from OCD.  We had spent decades trying to stop behaviors without giving the necessary attention to the thoughts that drive the behaviors.  CBT came about in the 1960’s and is designed to flip that script and start recognizing, challenging, and reframing or reshaping the thought patterns that are behind the coping behaviors.  Especially if you suffer from intrusive thoughts that tend to appear out of nowhere or come to you in your own mind but sound similar to your abuser, getting to the root of the thoughts themselves are paramount in your healing journey. 

We had previously talked about the basics of functional care for yourself.  This type of healing found through CBT is a great steppingstone on the path to healthier, intuitive eating, and even better sleep.  A lot of survivors find themselves struggling in these areas due to intrusive thoughts.  If you aren’t having success in a lot of the basics of self-care, you may have these underlying forces of destructive and obsessive thought patterns that are sabotaging.  Thinking on negative things creates a worry and a stress that is hard for the body to know what to do with; often the negative thoughts get trapped in parts of our body unable to resolve either because they are not solvable, not true, not properly perceived, not useful, etc.  Sleeping and digestion can be interrupted by being overstressed and worried.  Retraining your thought patterns is a lifesaver for some.

CBT is not successful for everyone, but it actually is highly successful for most thought-driven behavior issues.  It has been one of the top researched therapies and is fairly simple to try.  Although some CBT sessions can be emotionally triggering, the risk of CBT is low.  It often is covered by insurance as a type of talk therapy with a CBT trained therapist.  It is a hugely goal-oriented therapy, so you can really measure your gains quite easily and build momentum from there.  While this is not a get-well-quick situation and often takes a time to progress to mastery over your thinking, this is a recommendation that the reward can be life changing and healing from many types of suffering.  CBT also incorporates other techniques while learning to change your cognitive mind that are also helpful for every day issues found amongst survivors.  CBT can teach or utilize writing, breathwork, calming techniques, visual relaxation, and reframing.  All of those things are recommendations for survivors to try as well.  They are all powerful tools for your toolbox and to pack them with cognitive retraining is a double down on positive steps forward. 

Remember – as we talked about on the last episode, self-compassion is a motivator and leader.  So if you think CBT may be right for you, talk with your trauma recovery coach or therapist for more info.  Then let self-compassion hold your hand down into this therapy to attempt to conquer your self-harming and self-destructive thoughts.  This is a great first way to honor yourself with compassion by trying something that could put a whole new perspective on your world and future.   

*Just a quick side note: CBT has been so impactful that you can even find self-help CBT guidance in the form of CDs and workbooks to guide you through doing CBT on your own.  If you do stumble upon this as an option for yourself, please note that self-CBT may be harmful or ineffective for someone suffering with severe PTSD or clinical depression or extreme OCD, etc.  In that case, I would recommend you work with a professional and then later you can use the self-guided workbooks as reinforcements and continuing work on yourself.  It may be helpful to ask your trauma coach or therapist if the self-help option is appropriate for you.