Greater Boston Area: Benefits of CBT for Anxiety Treatment

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is used to provide treatment for a wide range of issues and disorders. Individuals who want to learn how to reduce anxiety and address specific issues, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), substance abuse, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), can benefit greatly from cognitive behavioral therapy treatments. At Transitions Counseling Services, Inc. our therapists work to provide our clients with a comfortable and safe environment that can be used to help them find resolutions to their problems. Greater Boston area anxiety treatment can be found via a CBT certified therapist in Franklin, MA at our respected group practice.

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
The goal of CBT is to train your brain to utilize a different way of learning and looking at things in the world. Learning how to slow down and carefully consider whether or not your thoughts or beliefs are rational, can help to provide clarity in thinking and decision-making. When thinking is based on facts instead of fears or automatic negative thoughts, anxiety, and stress can be successfully reduced. This is why cognitive behavioral therapy is a great choice for many clients who want to learn how to reduce anxious and depressive symptoms and feel more in control of your emotions and reactions.

It can take time for the brain to learn new things and it can take even more time for the brain to learn new ways of doing things, particularly if those things were a part of our daily lives. The way that we think about things, our belief system, can seriously impact the way that we react and act in the world. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular tool in Greater Boston anxiety treatment because it involves repetitive training to increase knowledge, experience, and confidence with the new way of looking at or doing things. This is particularly true when it comes to issues like social anxiety, where the main process that can help to reduce stress and anxiety is learning to identify what your automatic thoughts are, if they are rational or distorted and then how to act upon it.

CBT: A Long History
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is credited to two independent doctors in the 1950s who challenged the accepted psychoanalytic theory popularized by Freud for most mental health problems. Research occurred during the 1960s and 1970s which began to reveal that CBT was beneficial for many different types of mental conditions. Social anxiety was discovered and discussed in the 1980s, which further validated CBT as an important option for Greater Boston anxiety treatment, and for the treatment of other disorders and conditions. More research was conducted in the 1990s, and to date, CBT is still the only type of therapy that has been proven to be effective in the permanent removal of certain anxiety disorders and depression.

Awareness regarding cognitive behavioral therapy has increased in recent years as many certified therapists in Franklin, MA and all throughout the country have learned about the value and importance of repetition, reinforcement, and rationality. Time is also required for this approach to really take hold and help reduce anxiety. No “quick fix” or prescription will help clients learn a new way of looking at or doing things the way that CBT can.  Additional therapies can be used to augment CBT and increase results, including relaxation methods, alternative methods such as acupuncture, meditation, and hypnotherapy and adjunctive medication therapy in some cases. However, these therapies are in addition to cognitive behavioral therapy, not instead of, as they are unable to help clients shift the way they are thinking and reframe thoughts to be more healthy and rational, which is how we see long term benefits and successes.

Top Benefits of CBT
If you are considering cognitive behavioral therapy through the services of a certified therapist in Franklin, MA or the Greater Boston area, make sure to consider all of the benefits associated with this type of treatment. If your goal is to learn how to reduce anxiety, whether that anxiety stems from social situations or something else altogether, CBT could be the right treatment for you. One of the biggest benefits from engaging in CBT with a professional therapist is the ability to analyze thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Rational thinking helps to prevent automatic negative thoughts, feelings, and fears to take hold of your brain and control your behavior.

Rational beliefs help you to control your thinking, assisting you in learning the strategies that you require to stop unwanted thinking to keep your thought process clear. Once you take control over unwanted thoughts and learn to keep your beliefs rational, ultimately your beliefs about yourself and world around you will begin to change. As a result, your confidence will improve, in addition to your quality of life. The more control you have, the easier it will be to slow down and move away from the anxiety that used to dominate you in your past.

Greater Boston Anxiety Treatment
To learn more about our team of certified therapists in Franklin, MA or to ask questions about cognitive behavioral therapy, make sure to give us a call at 781-742-4515. Our team can help you schedule an appointment for Greater Boston anxiety treatment as soon as you are ready to get started.