How Do You Stop The Bad Thoughts?
Are you scared you’ll never be able to break your negative thought pattern? Or maybe you’re wondering how you can ever stop the cycle of negative thinking when it’s been going for years and years?
You might try to ignore or self-medicate but the bad thoughts are hard to stop. Perhaps you try to push it away or distract from it but the bad memories, bad thoughts, and bad days come back.
Thankfully, there is a type of therapy that can help you cope with the distress you haven’t been able to get away from.
By working with a compassionate therapist like me, you can find the help you need through cognitive therapy. Studies show it’s among the best for treating depression and anxiety. It’s called “cognitive” because it has to do with what and how you think.
Let me tell you about it.
Cognitive Therapy Brings Healing And Comfort
Cognitive therapy treats negative thoughts and limiting beliefs.
In depression treatment, this includes the ways you view:
1) yourself,
2) your world, and
3) your future.
If someone with depression thinks things like, “I’m always failing,” then they might have hard days where they swing back and forth between not wanting to do anything to being OK for a few hours to becoming extremely upset.
In anxiety treatment, cognitive therapy explores the link between how you perceive threat and how you assess your response.
Because if someone with anxiety believes something like “I’ve got no defenses in this situation,” then they won’t believe they can respond constructively and they’ll probably shut down or freeze.
In cognitive therapy with me, you’re not only getting the best techniques, concepts, and methods to treat depression and anxiety… you’re also getting them delivered to you in a fashion that makes it incredibly easy to internalize them and make them a part of you.
I’ve planned it for you to not only learn the concepts but also the driving ideas behind them so you eventually won’t need me (because when you know why and how they work, you can apply them on the fly…)
How Does Cognitive Therapy Work?
Now, I want you to avoid the mistake of thinking that cognitive therapy (how to change your mental outlook) is everything.
It’s not. It’s one piece of the puzzle, because therapy is both a cognitive and an emotional process. There’s a danger of focusing too much on one at the expense of the other… and then you lose the opportunity to heal both aspects of your pain.
Some therapy is only about how your thoughts make you feel sad and worthless. But then you never get to learn about your emotional responses.
Other therapy is only about letting your emotions loose without getting into your thoughts. But then you never learn new ways to live more effectively outside therapy.
This means if you do just one kind of therapy alone, it’s not going to help you to the fullest extent possible, because you really need to address both how you think and how you feel about life.
So, I take a different approach. Overall, it can be understood in 3 general stages.
First, I’ll help you by addressing your emotional experience. Then, as we focus on what the emotional experience means, we’ll take specific and concrete beliefs out of it. Finally, we’ll express those beliefs as cognitions, and work on them as we continue to find what heals you.
I can say with confidence this system will start getting the help you need for depression and anxiety immediately… and do it in weeks, not years.
Why Is Cognitive Therapy So Effective?
Sometimes thoughts and feelings can gang up on you, which is why cognitive therapy is designed to find them and take them apart. We do this so we then explore what else is possible.
Many people with depression or anxiety don’t feel much hope left, with little hope for the future. Here’s why:
Maybe you’ve heard that the human brain causes depression and anxiety… or that scientists discovered depression and anxiety can change your brain.
This link between your brain and your experience becomes strong as it builds layer after layer of connections. Then later you might automatically feel depressed or anxious because those connections get triggered in your life.
You may not know this, but a depressed brain is wired to see threats 150 milliseconds faster than “typical” brains, and it does this because the person feels lonely and socially isolated (check out the research of John Cacioppo).
All of this is to say that a person can be wired to get disturbed faster and more intensely by threats in the environment… and, I would say, by threats on the inside, too.
When someone is depressed or anxious, their brain is wired to view the world through a filter. Depression or anxiety influences how they think because it literally changes their brain.
To apply a positive influence here, cognitive therapy focuses on transformation in the following ways…
What Are Some Ways Cognitive Therapy Can Help?
The great news is, you can rewire your brain with all sorts of proven, scientific methods.
Here are 3 ways cognitive therapy can help:
1. It reorganizes the structure of depressed or anxious thinking.
The brain evolved to anticipate future problems and shut down when it can’t cope beyond a certain point.
We’re wired with these mechanisms. When they get switched on by life events, the challenge is that our brain doesn’t know when to stop.
People with depression or anxiety have brains that take things like imagining catastrophes and overthinking to extreme levels.
Cognitive therapy addresses these extreme levels so you can take back control over your troubling thoughts.
2. It works on how depression or anxiety processes information.
Someone with depression or anxiety processes information from the outside world differently than most people.
A person like this can struggle with ideas like: “I can’t do anything right.” Everyday challenges can bring up thoughts like: “I’ve been trying my hardest to keep going but nothing changes.”
Cognitive therapy uses practical, scientifically researched techniques to help your depression or anxiety based on how it literally shows up in your thoughts.
3. It’s among the very best at helping physical or behavioral problems.
Sometimes cognitive therapy can be called “CBT” because it uses both cognitive and behavioral techniques. In other words, I can offer you help that includes Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Applied Relaxation, and Breathing Retraining methods. Those are just some of the ways I can use cognitive therapy to address physical symptoms of depression, anxiety, or PTSD.
You may also be wondering..,
Can Cognitive Therapy Work Online?
Yes. The good news is that a session of cognitive therapy is still talk therapy—which can be done in-person or online.
Either way, I’ll still be able to help you with bad or dark thoughts. And I’ll still be able to give you the needed care and information.
Is Cognitive Therapy “Let’s Just Pretend You’re Fine, And You Will Be”?
No, absolutely not. In cognitive therapy, you get help with your depressive thoughts and anxiety exactly as they show up for you—without avoiding them or pretending they don’t disrupt your life.
But also…
As your therapist, I don’t think it’s helpful to do things like pretend everything is fine, as if that way you’ll feel better. If you’re facing a challenge in life, then it deserves respect in therapy.
Let Me Help You Find A New Way To Think
Cognitive therapy offers a proven system to help your depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms. Please call or email me for your free 15-minute consultation so I can hear your needs and answer your questions.
Let’s team up to get you through this. I offer individual therapy in Denver, CO, and I offer online counseling and phone calls as well. Learn more about the HIPAA compliant online therapy I offer HERE. Please reach out soon!
CONTACT ME
If you’re thinking about suicide and are in immediate danger, please call your local emergency number. For Denver, Colorado, call 1-844-493-8255 or text TALK to 38255. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
