A definition of Cognitive behavioral therapy from
the National Alliance of Mental Illness:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. By exploring patterns of thinking that lead to self-destructive actions and the beliefs that direct these thoughts, people with mental illness can modify their patterns of thinking to improve coping. CBT is a type of psychotherapy that is different from traditional psychodynamic psychotherapy in that the therapist and the patient will actively work together to help the patient recover from their mental illness.
A person who is depressed may have the belief, “I am worthless,” and a person with panic disorder may have the belief, “I am in danger.” While the person in distress likely believes these to be ultimate truths, with a therapist’s help, the individual is encouraged to challenge these irrational beliefs.
http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Treatments_and_Supports/Cognitive_Behavioral_Therapy1.htm
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is literal
“examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors” is very important. This examination provides an opportunity to examine stories we tell our selves, such as, “I am worthless” or “I am in danger” when in fact the opposite is true in reality. It is a pattern of thinking and feeling that is exaggerated or simply not true. So a large benefit of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is disclosing the literal conflict between the story we tell ourselves and reality.
From a child’s point of view
We tend to want to believe the story we tell ourselves because we learned it at such a young age and usually over many years. So many of the stories started before we had adult minds to make sense out of them. That is why the stories can be so exaggerated and so believable up into adult years. Because from a child’s point of view, if an adult told me “I was worthless”, I believed them. They were the adult and I was the kid. And from a child’s point of view, real danger was felt in many, many, situations; from loud voices, confusing relationships, and traumatic events. Children are so sensitive they take in the world good and bad with little to no filters.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is both literal and symbolic
So, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy gives a good place to start with a literal view of the situation. The next step has to do with “psychodynamic psychotherapy”. This type of therapy not only looks into the literal story of our lives and what we tell ourselves about that, but also the meaning of that story and what it says about our part in a much larger story of the soul and human evolution.
This meaning is acquired through introspection and a gradual movement from a literal point of view to symbolic point of view. We can afford to read between the lines to find meaning. We can connect the dots and experience a much broader and deeper life. This way we do not live a life as a victim of parental, cultural, and ancestral ignorance.
For example, the symptom of “I am worthless” or “I am in danger”(when it is not literally true)
is a symbol pointing to something else; such as, confused identity or existential anxiety about living a full life. It is a representation, of what is going on in our depths to help us find meaning in our struggle and not just define these thoughts and feelings as mental illness. That makes me feel worthless.
