CBT and Meditation For Unhealthy Thinking
Why CBT Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is very useful in reducing negative thinking patterns that cause and increase anxiety, stress and depression. Why combining CBT with meditation or mindfulness increases the success of CBT.
Unhealthy or distorted thinking is a major cause of anxiety, stress and depression as well as addiction and eating disorders. Negative Thinking is displayed in Catastrophizing, Negative Self-Labeling, All or Nothing Thinking and Disqualifying the Positives. It is the major component of most mental and emotional health challenges.
As a therapist and healer who has been specializing in anxiety and stress disorders for nearly 25 years, I find teaching CBT and Meditation together is a very useful self-help tool for clients.
What Is CBT?
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that is extremely popular for helping to treat depression and other Mental Health Challenges that are caused and reinforced by unhealthy thinking patterns such as ruminative thoughts.
CBT Cognitive Behaviour Therapy provides the client with the tools to become aware of and challenge or change their runaway thoughts, and their unconscious distorted thought patterns.
CBT As A Self Help Tool
When CBT is taught the right way to a client, it empowers the person to become more mindful of how much their negative thinking is affecting their emotions and behaviour. It provides the client with an effective self-help skill that has been widely researched and demonstrated as being a very effective tool for reducing further relapses of depression, chronic anxiety or chronic stress.
CBT, Mindfulness And Meditation
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is often combined with Mindfulness a style of meditation which teaches one how to be more present and still.
Meditation is a tool or technique that helps increase presence and a state of being. When meditation is taught correctly it allows us to access our own state of peace, calm or stillness at any moment. It helps free us from the constant inner chatter or self-critical inner dialogue that engulfs our day-to-day living that causes us anxiety and stress.
Traditional Meditation And CBT
Most traditional meditation techniques use a clear point of focus/awareness that helps increase our focus and awareness of the self, whilst loosening the over-identification with our egoic thoughts.These tend to be far more helpful in discipling the mind than some types of guided meditations that are more like guided visualisations.
In these types of guided meditations the therapist or healer is feeding the client or students mind with a narrative, a story rather than helping the client or student have more quite and space from constant thoughts.
That is why when trying to master cognitive behaviour therapy the focus should be more on combining with more traditional forms of meditation and mindful focus than for example meditation stories.
In western society we identify and believe we are our thoughts, traditional meditation gives us more respite, and peace from this illusion.I know as a meditator for over 30 years how powerful the art of meditation can help us become more present and aware of their thoughts and behaviours.
Combining CBT And Meditation
That is why why mindfulness meditations are useful aids at slowing down, spacing out the monkey mind, that runaway train of thoughts that leads us to all sorts of conclusions, perceptions, beliefs, feelings and reactions.
CBT and Meditation can be powerful tools to help clients reduce, anxiety, stress, depression, lack of confidence, dis-empowerment and so much more. If the right CBT and Meditation tools are applied at the right time, in the right way. If you would like to begin meditating, you can access my FREE Traditional Breath Meditation today.
