How CBT can help you cope with life’s ups and downs

What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? (CBT)

We all experience setbacks, disappointments, uncertainty, and unexpected challenges. While we can’t always control what happens to us, we can learn to manage how we respond. This is where Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be transformative and has become the most widely used talking therapy in the UK and in many countries around the world.

While traditional psychodynamic therapies often focus on examining past, often unconscious, experiences, frequently stemming from childhood, CBT focuses on the ‘now’. In this way, the therapy examines thinking, feeling and ways of behaving in the present in order to recognise unhelpful patterns and habits. This is because the ‘here and now’ is seen as a good place to start, as this is ultimately what is upsetting us, even if it about ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. It is ‘in the now’ that we are often upset and disturbed and can find life difficult to cope with.

What is REBT CBT? Using your ‘ABCs’

I specialise in a type of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy called ‘REBT’, otherwise known as Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy. This is a branch of CBT that uses the ‘ABC’ model to help with most issues that can come up in daily life. REBT was developed by Albert Ellis, who was one of the originators of CBT. He argued that:

"It’s not the event itself that disturbs us — it’s the beliefs we hold about the event."

Therefore, if you change the way you think about an event, you can also change the way you feel about the event. Here is a breakdown of the REBT model of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy:

The REBT Model (A-B-C-D-E)

A - Activating event – an event that upsets you.

B - Belief – Your belief or inference about the event – what it means to you.

C - Consequences of your belief – this can result in symptoms such as panic attacks, anxiety, depression or anger.

D - Disputation – Within REBT your beliefs are questioned so that you can feel better about the upsetting event.

E - Effective New Belief – adopting a more flexible and positive belief about yourself or the event will lead to emotional wellbeing and positivity.

How I can help

From many years of using REBT CBT within my practice I have helped people to explore why they are upset about a particular event or events, and how they can ‘undisturb’ themselves using CBT.

I have found this process effective and easy to apply to any situation so that once clients have adopted the approach it can often transform their lives in ways they may not have expected. This is because by exploring unhealthy and rigid beliefs, clients can explore more flexible ways of thinking about the self and others that reduces emotional distress while still achieve set goals.

It can be a truly transformative approach to therapy that can empower and instil a resilience resulting in a more relaxed and healthier approach to life's challenges.

An example of applying the ABC model: Fear of spiders/arachnophobia

An example of how the ABC model can work in practice is through the example of an often irrational fear of spiders in the UK (maybe not so irrational in Australia!). Some argue this could be a genetic predisposition because some spiders can kill in some hot countries. However, in the UK we do not have any venomous spiders, so the threat is not so appropriate.

This fear of spiders can escalate to a full-blown phobia and panic attacks just at the idea of a spider. In this case, CBT can help to examine what is going on when the anxiety is felt and what thoughts and beliefs are attached to these anxieties.

A graduated exposure therapy is also recommended. This involves starting to look at cartoon pictures of spiders, then photographs of real spiders, progressing to videos of spiders; all with the aim of being able to tolerate being around actual spiders in the home or garden etc.

The ABC model would work like this:

A - Activating event – Seeing a spider.

B - Belief – The spider is a threat and will hurt me.

C - Consequences of your belief – Panic and run away or kill the spider.

D - Disputation – Will the spider really hurt you? Tolerating your feeling around spiders.

E - Effective New Belief – While being near a spider may not be pleasant it can be tolerated and does not have to upset or disturb you. The spider is then not seen as a threat to life anymore but something you can cohabit with if necessary.

Summary

In summary, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can help you to understand the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in order to change negative thought patterns and behaviour to improve mental health and overall well-being, no matter what the triggering or ‘activating’ situation is. It can therefore be seen as a practical and philosophical approach to issues that focus on the ‘now’ rather than a long-term analysis of childhood experiences and unconscious processes.