August 1, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode, I talk about cognitive-behavioral therapy.
You can catch me on:
🐦 Twitter at https://x.com/abovotherapy
📸 Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dr_kkoz_official/
💼 LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-koziara/
📚 ResearchGate at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karolina_Koziara
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ab-ovo-the-psychology-podcast--6255591/support.
You can catch me on:
🐦 Twitter at https://x.com/abovotherapy
📸 Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dr_kkoz_official/
💼 LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-koziara/
📚 ResearchGate at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karolina_Koziara
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ab-ovo-the-psychology-podcast--6255591/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hello guys, welcome back. I'm coming to you with another
episode about our therapy, but in this episode, I'm going
to talk about our cognitive behavioral therapy. In the previous episode,
I talked in general about what psychodynamic therapy is and
(00:34):
all the basics of how it interprets human behavior and emotions,
and today I want to continue along the same lines,
but in this episode, I'm going to introduce you to
a different therapeutic approach. Our cognitive behavioral therapy are also
known as our CBT. And by the way, I've always wondered,
(00:59):
when you're looking for a therapists, how much do they
actually pay attention to the approach they use. Well, obviously
you can't command directly on podcasts unless you're listening on YouTube,
but if you had first kind experience with therapy, or
you've talked to someone who has, I'd love to know,
first of all, do you actually check what your approach
(01:23):
what approach your therapist works in? And second, do you
care about those approaches at all? Or is it totally
completely relevant to you and you just go by recommendations
from other clients or word of mouth from friends or
that kind of thing. I would like to know. So
(01:44):
last time I told you about a psychodynamic approach that
it is more about slowly uncovering the root of a
problem and often going all the way back to early
childhood because in a second day gemic thinking, that's when
our very first bonds are formed and those play a
(02:07):
key role later in life. And because of that, psychodynamic
therapy tends to be a long term process, and cognitive
behavioral therapy or CBT is, in the simplest terms, much
more concrete. It's called an evidence based therapy, meaning it's
(02:30):
bagged by scientific research showing its effectiveness. Now I'm not
saying that psychodynamic therapy isn't effective, but it hasn't been
started in the same objective, structured way that CBT has,
and compared to psychodynamic therapy, CBD is usually much shorter. Well,
(02:52):
typically you're looking at a set number of sessions maybe
or maybe sometimes twenty, during which you identify the cause
of the problem and work together to come up with
specific strategies and practical steps to help you deal with it.
(03:13):
And of course, if the issue is more complex, or
if the client struggles with completing the assitements or connecting
with their emotions, therapy can be extended maybe to twenty
twenty something sessions, sometimes very rarely. Usually that's the case
(03:39):
with personality disorders. The cipity therapy can be extended to
for example, year or year and a half, but this
is definitely not going to stretch over several years like
exectly dynamic therapy. It also depends on the therapies, but
(04:02):
I know CBT practitioners who if they see progress or
slowing down or hitting a plateau, they will suggest taking
a break from therapy. That way, the client has space
to try out the techniques they've learned so far and
then come back later with an update on what worked,
(04:23):
what didn't, and what are still his attention. And since
we're talking about techniques, a huge part of CIBT is
a homework, so I'll be prepared that after a CBD
session you'll probably get an assignment, and these can be
very different depending on the issue working on. It might
(04:46):
be keeping an emotional journal, writing down a challenging situations
and the thoughts that came with them, or mapping out
how your thoughts of feelings and behaviors are connected, or
doing relaxation exercise daily or a few times a week
(05:07):
between sessions. There's actually quite a wide range of possible assignments,
and they all are tailored to your specific problem. And
previously I talked about how psychodynamic therapy assumes that the
roots of most problems lie in early childhood relationships and
(05:29):
the dynamics between a child and their caregivers, as well
as between the caregivers themselves. In cognitive behavioral therapy, the
basic assumption is quite different. Is that, Well, the assumption
is that people learn. In fact, the process of learning
(05:49):
begins essentially at birth, and it's not or some people
might say that even before then, as fee as we
can learn, but let's let's focus on the time after
we are born. So the sibility assumes that learning begins
(06:10):
essentially at birth, and it's not just humans or animals
learn in exactly the same way. If you have pats,
you've probably noticed that the sound of a can being
opened can make your farry friend appear next to you
at lightning speed, because they've learned that an opening can
means something good is coming. And throughout life we learn
(06:34):
all kinds of patterns. We learn. We learned that you
say hello when you enter a place. We learn not
to put our hand into a fire because it will hurt.
But we can also learn moladaptive patterns, our behaviors, and
beliefs that do not really serve as well. And we
can learn, for example, that it's not worth telling others
(06:57):
about our feelings because they might left us. We might
learn that you cannot trust anyone because you'll end up
betrayed or taking advantage of. Or we might learn that
people judge others based on appearance because someone wants said
something hurtful to us. But does that mean everyone who's
(07:19):
ever heard a mean comment will automatically develop such a belief. Well,
of course not. If that were the case, it would
mean people operate like machines or stimulus in reaction out
and that's not how humans work. This is where the
cognitive component comes in. The cognitive realm is a fairly
(07:44):
complex concept, and I'm not going to unpack all of
it here, But for our proposes, the most important thing
to understand is this learning is not a simple stimulus
response process. It's a complex mental process that happens within
a social context. That means we don't just learn by
(08:06):
reacting to things. We also learn by observing others, drawing
conclusions from these observations, listening to how other people interpret
and reason about events, watching the consequences of others' behavior,
and even by modeling our own behavior and seeing what
happens when we change it. Well. Albert Bandura, one of
(08:28):
the founding figures of the cognitive approach, argue that the
cognitive dimension of a person a meaning their subjective way
of perceiving and interpreting reality, is inseparably connected to both
behavior and the external environment. So as you can already
(08:50):
see or rather hear, getting to the root of a
maladaptive behavior or belief can sometimes be quite difficult, and
very often it's actually easier for us to identify the
emotions we felt in response to an experience that it
is to pinpoint the thoughts or underlying beliefs that went
(09:13):
along with it, and the beliefs we hold often lead
us to what's called automatic thoughts. So, for example, let's
say we have a core believe that people are dishonest.
Now imagine a simple scenario someone borrows a pant from
us and doesn't give it back. Well, our automatic thought
(09:35):
kicks in immediately. There are a thief just like that.
We're upset. Well, automatic thoughts allow us to interpret the
reality very quickly. They don't require much effort, which means
we can serve our mental energy and cognitive resources. But
the real question is is that interpretation actually accurate. Well,
(09:59):
in the case of an exam, for instance, maybe that
person that one who borrowed a pan from us. Maybe
that person was simply nervous and forgot to return the pan,
or maybe they're terrible with faces and genuinely didn't realize
it was ours. Or perhaps it was the first time
(10:22):
they had ever forgotten their pen and it never even
crossed their mind that they had borrowed it. Well, this
is a very simple example, but I hope it clearly
shows how unhelpful core believes and the automatic thoughts that
stem from them can make life harder, and they can
(10:44):
cover many different areas. They might be believed about ourselves,
I'm useless, I'm stupid, I'm not good enough, I'm an attractive.
They might be about other people They're bad, dishonest, just
how to take advantage of me, or about the world
(11:04):
in general. The world is dangerous, threatening, unpredictable, and so on,
and our behaviors and emotions will naturally follow those beliefs
and thoughts, and I don't want to list them all here.
There are as many variations as there are people, but
(11:24):
you can probably imagine how a consistently negative view of
the world, of ourselves and of others often leads to
avoiding contact with people, giving up on personal growth, and
experiencing depression, anxiety, addictions, or many other issues that bring
clients to therapy. Well. The main goal of cognitive behavioral
(11:46):
therapy is to identify those core beliefs, understand the chain
that links them to our emotions and behaviors, and develop
techniques that help us change the way we interpret reality.
And ultimately this allows us to control our behavior and
emotions so that they no longer have such a negative
(12:09):
impact on our lives. So put simply, in SYBT, we
work to identify the source of unhelpful, maladaptive patterns so
we can change them, and in doing so, we eliminate
the behaviors and the painful emotions that go along with
them that have been holding us back. In the previous
(12:31):
episode on psychodynamic therapy, I talked about how a large
part of the therapist work focuses on monitoring transfers and countertransference,
and on interpreting the emotions that arise in the therapeutic relationship.
And in cognitive behavioral therapy, the relationship between therapists and
our client is also incredibly important, but for a slightly
(12:55):
different reasons. In CYBT, the client work together with the
therapist to define the problem and to develop appropriate solutions.
And that's why it's often said that in CBT, the
therapist works just as actively as the client because the
(13:18):
outcome depends on the joint effort of both sides. And
what's more, CIBT is much more focused on specific, concrete
problems and therefore on what's happening here and now, rather
than primarily on the past. And of course past experiences
are still important for understanding where our beliefs about ourselves
(13:43):
or the world come from. But the therapeutic work itself
is aimed at solving the problem the client is struggling
with today, the one that's currently interfering with their life.
And what's key in CBT, Actually, the main reason I
chose to work in this approach is the importunity to
(14:04):
equip clients with skills they can use not only for
the problem they bring to therapy, but in many other
areas of life. So during therapy, we develop methods that
help clients gain insight into their core beliefs and improve
their ability to identify the emotions that come up in
(14:24):
response to various situations. So clients learn how to recognize
and identify their automatic thoughts, how to connect those thoughts
to their behaviors, and finally how to use techniques developed
in therapy or to rationally analyze their behavior and ask
(14:45):
themselves is this response appropriate and adaptive or could I
change it so it doesn't lead to negative feelings and suffering.
So that's very useful, That's very helpful, and I'm really
happy when a client leaves with with having the hand on,
hands on ability to deal with the problem. And additionally,
(15:12):
in cognitive behavioral therapy, there's a strong emphasis on the
psycho educational aspect of the sessions. So this means helping clients,
for example, learn how to identify early warning signs of disorder.
And this is especially important in for instance, depression or
(15:32):
other mood disorders where symptoms can return, and the earlier
those signs are recognized, the more effective treatment can be
and the sooner it can it can be started. UH
and well, clients who are able to spot the early
signs of of a drop in mood. Who notice that
(15:53):
something is changing their behavior tend to seek psychiatric health
much faster, and that can help them avoid sinking into
a deeper depression that would make it almost impossible to function,
or for sure it makes it impossible to function at
their best. So to sum up cognitive behavioral therapy, as
(16:22):
you can hear, it is quite different from psychodynamic therapy. Well,
the focus is placed on different areas and the source
of client's problem is understood in a different ways. So
there's always a question if CIBT is a better option. Well,
(16:43):
from my perspective as someone who works in this approach, well,
of course I'm going to say yes. From the researcher perspective, well,
CYPT offers a way to objectively and measurably assess the
client's progress. So we can see whether the client is
(17:04):
doing their homework signments, We can observe in real time
how they interpret events in their life. We can hear
what they say and whether they're identifying their automatic thoughts.
And compared to psychodynamic therapy, which has a more let's say,
narrative and open ended character, CYBT is far more concrete
(17:28):
It's also a form of therapy that demands full engagement
from both sides, so the intellectual effort is high for
both the client and the therapist. And that being said,
not every therapist personality is perfect fit for CYBT, and
there will also be clients who aren't looking to pinpoint
(17:51):
and solve a specific problem. So some people simply want
a reflective space, a catalyst for their emotions, way to
look at their life from a broader perspective, and for them,
CBT probably will not be the first choice. Well, However,
(18:12):
the majority of emotional and behavioral problems, as well as
more complex disorders and dysfunctions are Cibit offers highly effective
tools and are clear structured path forward. So similarly to
psychodynamic therapy, I would say that CBT is is a
(18:34):
good choice for the vast majority of disorders, including specific phobias,
which I told you that psychodynamic therapy will not be
the most effective. Well, so thank you for today's episode
and have a nice evening or a nice day and
(18:55):
until next time, Bye bye,
Hello guys, welcome back. I'm coming to you with another
episode about our therapy, but in this episode, I'm going
to talk about our cognitive behavioral therapy. In the previous episode,
I talked in general about what psychodynamic therapy is and
(00:34):
all the basics of how it interprets human behavior and emotions,
and today I want to continue along the same lines,
but in this episode, I'm going to introduce you to
a different therapeutic approach. Our cognitive behavioral therapy are also
known as our CBT. And by the way, I've always wondered,
(00:59):
when you're looking for a therapists, how much do they
actually pay attention to the approach they use. Well, obviously
you can't command directly on podcasts unless you're listening on YouTube,
but if you had first kind experience with therapy, or
you've talked to someone who has, I'd love to know,
first of all, do you actually check what your approach
(01:23):
what approach your therapist works in? And second, do you
care about those approaches at all? Or is it totally
completely relevant to you and you just go by recommendations
from other clients or word of mouth from friends or
that kind of thing. I would like to know. So
(01:44):
last time I told you about a psychodynamic approach that
it is more about slowly uncovering the root of a
problem and often going all the way back to early
childhood because in a second day gemic thinking, that's when
our very first bonds are formed and those play a
(02:07):
key role later in life. And because of that, psychodynamic
therapy tends to be a long term process, and cognitive
behavioral therapy or CBT is, in the simplest terms, much
more concrete. It's called an evidence based therapy, meaning it's
(02:30):
bagged by scientific research showing its effectiveness. Now I'm not
saying that psychodynamic therapy isn't effective, but it hasn't been
started in the same objective, structured way that CBT has,
and compared to psychodynamic therapy, CBD is usually much shorter. Well,
(02:52):
typically you're looking at a set number of sessions maybe
or maybe sometimes twenty, during which you identify the cause
of the problem and work together to come up with
specific strategies and practical steps to help you deal with it.
(03:13):
And of course, if the issue is more complex, or
if the client struggles with completing the assitements or connecting
with their emotions, therapy can be extended maybe to twenty
twenty something sessions, sometimes very rarely. Usually that's the case
(03:39):
with personality disorders. The cipity therapy can be extended to
for example, year or year and a half, but this
is definitely not going to stretch over several years like
exectly dynamic therapy. It also depends on the therapies, but
(04:02):
I know CBT practitioners who if they see progress or
slowing down or hitting a plateau, they will suggest taking
a break from therapy. That way, the client has space
to try out the techniques they've learned so far and
then come back later with an update on what worked,
(04:23):
what didn't, and what are still his attention. And since
we're talking about techniques, a huge part of CIBT is
a homework, so I'll be prepared that after a CBD
session you'll probably get an assignment, and these can be
very different depending on the issue working on. It might
(04:46):
be keeping an emotional journal, writing down a challenging situations
and the thoughts that came with them, or mapping out
how your thoughts of feelings and behaviors are connected, or
doing relaxation exercise daily or a few times a week
(05:07):
between sessions. There's actually quite a wide range of possible assignments,
and they all are tailored to your specific problem. And
previously I talked about how psychodynamic therapy assumes that the
roots of most problems lie in early childhood relationships and
(05:29):
the dynamics between a child and their caregivers, as well
as between the caregivers themselves. In cognitive behavioral therapy, the
basic assumption is quite different. Is that, Well, the assumption
is that people learn. In fact, the process of learning
(05:49):
begins essentially at birth, and it's not or some people
might say that even before then, as fee as we
can learn, but let's let's focus on the time after
we are born. So the sibility assumes that learning begins
(06:10):
essentially at birth, and it's not just humans or animals
learn in exactly the same way. If you have pats,
you've probably noticed that the sound of a can being
opened can make your farry friend appear next to you
at lightning speed, because they've learned that an opening can
means something good is coming. And throughout life we learn
(06:34):
all kinds of patterns. We learn. We learned that you
say hello when you enter a place. We learn not
to put our hand into a fire because it will hurt.
But we can also learn moladaptive patterns, our behaviors, and
beliefs that do not really serve as well. And we
can learn, for example, that it's not worth telling others
(06:57):
about our feelings because they might left us. We might
learn that you cannot trust anyone because you'll end up
betrayed or taking advantage of. Or we might learn that
people judge others based on appearance because someone wants said
something hurtful to us. But does that mean everyone who's
(07:19):
ever heard a mean comment will automatically develop such a belief. Well,
of course not. If that were the case, it would
mean people operate like machines or stimulus in reaction out
and that's not how humans work. This is where the
cognitive component comes in. The cognitive realm is a fairly
(07:44):
complex concept, and I'm not going to unpack all of
it here, But for our proposes, the most important thing
to understand is this learning is not a simple stimulus
response process. It's a complex mental process that happens within
a social context. That means we don't just learn by
(08:06):
reacting to things. We also learn by observing others, drawing
conclusions from these observations, listening to how other people interpret
and reason about events, watching the consequences of others' behavior,
and even by modeling our own behavior and seeing what
happens when we change it. Well. Albert Bandura, one of
(08:28):
the founding figures of the cognitive approach, argue that the
cognitive dimension of a person a meaning their subjective way
of perceiving and interpreting reality, is inseparably connected to both
behavior and the external environment. So as you can already
(08:50):
see or rather hear, getting to the root of a
maladaptive behavior or belief can sometimes be quite difficult, and
very often it's actually easier for us to identify the
emotions we felt in response to an experience that it
is to pinpoint the thoughts or underlying beliefs that went
(09:13):
along with it, and the beliefs we hold often lead
us to what's called automatic thoughts. So, for example, let's
say we have a core believe that people are dishonest.
Now imagine a simple scenario someone borrows a pant from
us and doesn't give it back. Well, our automatic thought
(09:35):
kicks in immediately. There are a thief just like that.
We're upset. Well, automatic thoughts allow us to interpret the
reality very quickly. They don't require much effort, which means
we can serve our mental energy and cognitive resources. But
the real question is is that interpretation actually accurate. Well,
(09:59):
in the case of an exam, for instance, maybe that
person that one who borrowed a pan from us. Maybe
that person was simply nervous and forgot to return the pan,
or maybe they're terrible with faces and genuinely didn't realize
it was ours. Or perhaps it was the first time
(10:22):
they had ever forgotten their pen and it never even
crossed their mind that they had borrowed it. Well, this
is a very simple example, but I hope it clearly
shows how unhelpful core believes and the automatic thoughts that
stem from them can make life harder, and they can
(10:44):
cover many different areas. They might be believed about ourselves,
I'm useless, I'm stupid, I'm not good enough, I'm an attractive.
They might be about other people They're bad, dishonest, just
how to take advantage of me, or about the world
(11:04):
in general. The world is dangerous, threatening, unpredictable, and so on,
and our behaviors and emotions will naturally follow those beliefs
and thoughts, and I don't want to list them all here.
There are as many variations as there are people, but
(11:24):
you can probably imagine how a consistently negative view of
the world, of ourselves and of others often leads to
avoiding contact with people, giving up on personal growth, and
experiencing depression, anxiety, addictions, or many other issues that bring
clients to therapy. Well. The main goal of cognitive behavioral
(11:46):
therapy is to identify those core beliefs, understand the chain
that links them to our emotions and behaviors, and develop
techniques that help us change the way we interpret reality.
And ultimately this allows us to control our behavior and
emotions so that they no longer have such a negative
(12:09):
impact on our lives. So put simply, in SYBT, we
work to identify the source of unhelpful, maladaptive patterns so
we can change them, and in doing so, we eliminate
the behaviors and the painful emotions that go along with
them that have been holding us back. In the previous
(12:31):
episode on psychodynamic therapy, I talked about how a large
part of the therapist work focuses on monitoring transfers and countertransference,
and on interpreting the emotions that arise in the therapeutic relationship.
And in cognitive behavioral therapy, the relationship between therapists and
our client is also incredibly important, but for a slightly
(12:55):
different reasons. In CYBT, the client work together with the
therapist to define the problem and to develop appropriate solutions.
And that's why it's often said that in CBT, the
therapist works just as actively as the client because the
(13:18):
outcome depends on the joint effort of both sides. And
what's more, CIBT is much more focused on specific, concrete
problems and therefore on what's happening here and now, rather
than primarily on the past. And of course past experiences
are still important for understanding where our beliefs about ourselves
(13:43):
or the world come from. But the therapeutic work itself
is aimed at solving the problem the client is struggling
with today, the one that's currently interfering with their life.
And what's key in CBT, Actually, the main reason I
chose to work in this approach is the importunity to
(14:04):
equip clients with skills they can use not only for
the problem they bring to therapy, but in many other
areas of life. So during therapy, we develop methods that
help clients gain insight into their core beliefs and improve
their ability to identify the emotions that come up in
(14:24):
response to various situations. So clients learn how to recognize
and identify their automatic thoughts, how to connect those thoughts
to their behaviors, and finally how to use techniques developed
in therapy or to rationally analyze their behavior and ask
(14:45):
themselves is this response appropriate and adaptive or could I
change it so it doesn't lead to negative feelings and suffering.
So that's very useful, That's very helpful, and I'm really
happy when a client leaves with with having the hand on,
hands on ability to deal with the problem. And additionally,
(15:12):
in cognitive behavioral therapy, there's a strong emphasis on the
psycho educational aspect of the sessions. So this means helping clients,
for example, learn how to identify early warning signs of disorder.
And this is especially important in for instance, depression or
(15:32):
other mood disorders where symptoms can return, and the earlier
those signs are recognized, the more effective treatment can be
and the sooner it can it can be started. UH
and well, clients who are able to spot the early
signs of of a drop in mood. Who notice that
(15:53):
something is changing their behavior tend to seek psychiatric health
much faster, and that can help them avoid sinking into
a deeper depression that would make it almost impossible to function,
or for sure it makes it impossible to function at
their best. So to sum up cognitive behavioral therapy, as
(16:22):
you can hear, it is quite different from psychodynamic therapy. Well,
the focus is placed on different areas and the source
of client's problem is understood in a different ways. So
there's always a question if CIBT is a better option. Well,
(16:43):
from my perspective as someone who works in this approach, well,
of course I'm going to say yes. From the researcher perspective, well,
CYPT offers a way to objectively and measurably assess the
client's progress. So we can see whether the client is
(17:04):
doing their homework signments, We can observe in real time
how they interpret events in their life. We can hear
what they say and whether they're identifying their automatic thoughts.
And compared to psychodynamic therapy, which has a more let's say,
narrative and open ended character, CYBT is far more concrete
(17:28):
It's also a form of therapy that demands full engagement
from both sides, so the intellectual effort is high for
both the client and the therapist. And that being said,
not every therapist personality is perfect fit for CYBT, and
there will also be clients who aren't looking to pinpoint
(17:51):
and solve a specific problem. So some people simply want
a reflective space, a catalyst for their emotions, way to
look at their life from a broader perspective, and for them,
CBT probably will not be the first choice. Well, However,
(18:12):
the majority of emotional and behavioral problems, as well as
more complex disorders and dysfunctions are Cibit offers highly effective
tools and are clear structured path forward. So similarly to
psychodynamic therapy, I would say that CBT is is a
(18:34):
good choice for the vast majority of disorders, including specific phobias,
which I told you that psychodynamic therapy will not be
the most effective. Well, so thank you for today's episode
and have a nice evening or a nice day and
(18:55):
until next time, Bye bye,
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