A person's own distorted thoughts and beliefs leads him/her to negative moods and unhealthy behaviour. The blame is not on the surrounding people or situation/s.

In certain situations the thought pattern is automatic but inaccurate leading the person to disturbances like anxiety, overeating,etc. CBT helps an individual to become aware of such thoughts.

Indications

CBT is beneficial in many ways to treat wide range of mental illnesses and life stressors. Some of the benefits of CBT are

• Avoiding/decreasing psychiatric medications
• Emotional growth and healing
• To overcome negative moods and self-destructing behavior
• To prevent relapse of condition after stopping other modes of treatment

Some of the conditions where in CBT is very much beneficial are

• Emotional disturbances
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Relationship problems
• Sleep disorders
• Work problems
• Sexual disorders
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Bipolar disorders
• Phobias
• Eating disorders
• Personality disorders
• Substance abuse
• Psychotic disorders like schizophrenia

Risks

There are no risks as such. It can be temporary which will be a part of treatment. Like confronting you with the fearful situations to make you overcome the same.

Procedure

1. CBT typically includes 5 steps
2. Identifying the situations causing trouble in life(eg.disease, criticism, marriage, divorce,etc)
3. Awareness of thoughts
4. Identifying the negative or inaccurate thoughts
5. Challenging the negative or inaccurate thoughts
6. Changing the thoughts and beliefs

Duration

Usually it is done at regular intervals from 10-20 session. The changes are seen gradually and one should not hurry for results. One needs to change that thought pattern as well, which will be done in CBT.