Case study -
Take Tina, who worked in publishing. She met her boss in the lift and said 'good morning', but her boss didn't reply. In no time Tina was thinking thoughts like:
my boss doesn't like me
no-one likes me
I'm going to lose my job
life is hell. These thoughts were responsible for Tina plunging into a low mood. Tina didn't for one minute consider that her boss may not have heard her or that her boss might have been pre-occupied with her own thoughts. Tina realised she was always getting upset about such situations, and she started therapy to try to sort things out. In a few weeks, she came to understand how negative thoughts were causing her to be unhappy. Tina also learned how to spot when she was jumping to conclusions in this way. Then, with help, she was able to challenge these negative thoughts by looking for evidence to see if they were really true. They were rarely true, so Tina was only upsetting herself by thinking in such a way. This is what many of us do. Cognitive therapy teaches us to stop thinking so negatively, to challenge untrue thoughts and to replace them with more rational and healthy ones
Will CBT work for me? The benefits of cognitive therapy are well researched. CBT suits individuals with all sorts of problems – including depression, anxiety, phobias, difficult relationships, obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating disorders, especially bulimia nervosa. For many patients it has been found to be more helpful than any other kind of treatment, including antidepressants.
