Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

There are direct methods to focus on blocking unwanted behaviours or promoting wanted behaviours. Behavioural therapy uses experimentally validated principles of learning to overcome unwanted habits.

Counter-conditioning uses the reciprocal inhibition principle in which responses are encouraged such as relaxation which diminish anxiety in the presence of anxiety provoking situations. Various relaxation techniques may be taught including breathing techniques, muscle relaxation, and autogenic relaxation based on a yoga nidra understanding of the value of shifting attention. Meditation is another relaxation technique with multiple approaches that can provide benefit. These desensitising procedures can be used to treat feared events of various kinds. Phobias and many anxiety disorders can be treated in this way.

Positive conditioning uses rewards of various types to to reward wanted behaviour. For example, coaching assertiveness training techniques with consequent praise for positive outcomes. This can help treat low confidence and low self esteem. By contrast, extinction techniques may weaken a habit by disallowing a usual reward to unwanted behaviour, for example in the treatment of tics by deliberate overuse causing fatigue.

The thoughts and cognitions surrounding an individuals' experience can also be targeted. The aim is to eliminate illogical or irrational thinking styles which directly lead to unwanted feelings and behaviours. This is a major component of treating depression. It is not so much what happens to a person which determines outcome but the way in which those events are interpreted or framed.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is part of my "spectrum approach" to psychological counselling.