The Benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Written by Stacey Klein
As a psychotherapist and a longtime patient of psychotherapy, I have had the good fortune of receiving both training and treatment in numerous schools of cutting edge psychotherapies including Cognitive Behavioral, Gestalt and Psychodynamic therapies. These experiences have helped me determine which therapies are most effective to integrate into my work with my clients. Although I am primarily a Gestalt therapist, integrating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been extremely helpful for many of my clients.
The Cognitive Component: Automatic Thought Patterns and Self Talk
The cognitive component of CBT focuses on helping you identify your particular “automatic thought patterns” which are the recurring negative or self defeating thoughts you have. You are then taught methods for challenging these thoughts and/ or considering alte
ative ways of thinking. CBT helps you tune in to how you talk to yourself in your head (kindly? critically? with a negative spin on everything..?) Most of us have a rambling “inner critic” which negates what we want to do rather than motivating us. Being unaware of what we’re telling ourselves (it’s like a nasty tape playing over and over), we don’t see how we’re living OUT OF these thoughts and stories by reacting to them or trying to disprove them, rather than observing what they are telling us and seeing if they are in fact helpful to us. Common themes for self talk include: not being good enough, that we SHOULD be doing something we don’t want to do or that we have to be perfect at something. When you become aware of something – it’s no longer automatic and then you can make a different choice.
The Behavioral Component
The behavioral component of CBT involves collaboratively designing situations with your therapist for you to practice both in and out of session (also known as “exposure therapy”) which challenge your automatic assumptions by having you face and master those situations you fear. This part of therapy is very effective in helping people master their anxieties and regain their lives. Exposure is often the only thing that helps a person shift from talking to action. In many situations, it is in the experience that we change as opposed to in the talking about how to change.
The upside of CBT is that it can help you learn the “how to” in changing unwanted behaviors rather than just keeping you on the why. While most therapies share their belief that awareness will set you free, oftentimes clients are unable to move further and take the next step to making the changes they so wish to see and behavioral work is essential in this way.
I am a huge proponent of CBT and use it regularly in my practice. Sometimes CBT is enough, but sometimes deeper work is needed on understanding the origins of these beliefs and how they have come to serve some function in your life.
Stacey Klein, LCSW is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York, NY. For further information please go to www.therapyinmanhattan.com
Article author
About the Author
I am a licensed clinical social worker with over 14 years of experience treating children, adolescents and adults. I have a private practice in psychotherapy on the Upper West Side of New York City. I am also a therapist at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Center of Excellence for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Related Disorders, which treats children, adolescents and adults with OCD and anxiety disorders.
While I am an integrative practitioner, my primary orientation as a gestalt therapist means I attend to your experiences in the present moment and the impact of the past as it lives in the present. I work collaboratively with you to heighten awareness of your feelings, sensations, breathing, non-verbal and habitual patterns to help you learn more about yourself, including the areas where you thrive and struggle. I believe that to get “unstuck” it is helpful to first notice how we do things and what our patterns are and then to experiment with new patterns and ways of being both in and out of session.
I received my Masters in Social Work in 1995 from Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work. I have worked in numerous mental health and addiction clinics throughout New York City where I also supervised clinicians and medical students. Some of these clinics include: The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, The Fifth Avenue Center for Counseling and Psychotherapy, Parallax Center for Substance Abuse and The Mount Sinai Child, Adolescent and Family Clinic.
I am trained in Gestalt Therapy, Self Psychology (Psychodynamic Therapy) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as Mindfulness/ Meditative Practices. I received my gestalt training with Dr. Ruella Frank and I am currently completing her advanced two-year training program in Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy.
At Mount Sinai, I was trained in the practice of Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT) for children, adolescents and adults by some of the nation’s leading experts in CBT including Rachel Yehuda, Edna Foa, Judy Cohen and Anthony Mannarino and Layne and Salzman.
I have been practicing cognitive behavioral therapy at Mount Sinai for the past 10 years in a variety of specialty clinics there including The Traumatic Stress Studies Program, The Child After-Trauma Care and Health Program (CATCH) and currently in the Center for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
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