Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for NYC
Untangle the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to overcome mental health challenges like anxiety and depression.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
CBT is a type of talk therapy that teaches you how to recognize and cope with unhealthy thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that shape your life. Through cognitive restructuring and behavioral activation, you’ll see tangible results from this evidence-based form of psychotherapy. Due to its effectiveness, CBT is the gold standard to treat disorders such as anxiety or chronic depression.
Your mind is powerful. All day long your brain does the heavy lifting, manufacturing thoughts based on situations you perceive. Unfortunately, your brain’s processing isn’t always consistent with reality. Interpretations may be rooted in unhealthy patterns of thought that no longer serve you. CBT teaches you how to become the primary interrogator of your own beliefs so you can engage life through a more realistic lens.
Have you ever felt out of touch with your emotions or like you’re at the mercy of uncontrollable feelings? Through therapy, you can learn to view emotions as clues to unconscious beliefs and release emotions tied to unproductive interpretations.
What if your actions lined up with what you really want? CBT helps you act in response to your feelings based on healthier interpretations you make about life’s events.
How does CBT help anxiety, depression, or ADHD?
Cognitive behavioral therapy offers a clear and transformative approach to overcoming the challenges of mood disorders like anxiety or depression, and other mental health challenges like ADHD. Most CBT sessions follow the same basic flow.
Therapy to Change Negative Thoughts
First, we’ll get “meta.” You’ll learn to think about your thinking, identifying potential cognitive distortions along the way. Through structured therapy, your therapist will help you unlock the patterns of thought that continually keep you stuck.
Therapy that Teaches Coping Skills
You get to choose how you want to react to life’s circumstances, even when you can’t control what’s happening. CBT will teach you how to evaluate your thoughts, reframe your interpretation of life’s events, and choose a better perspective to respond with more power and autonomy.
Therapy to Reach Goals
CBT isn’t just focused on the present. You’ll learn strategies to process future situations and, over time, shift how you show up in life so you’re operating as your more empowered and centered self.
Frequently asked questions.
Our CBT specialists at Healthy Minds NYC may use CBT to help you manage depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, sexual dysfunction, phobias, OCD, alcohol or drug use, relationship problems, and more!
In CBT you will practice metacognition, or “thinking about the way you think.” First, you will learn to approach and change your anxious thoughts with support. Over time, you will gain the skills necessary to challenge them outside of the therapeutic environment. Furthermore, psychotherapy provides an opportunity to learn new, effective, and healthy coping strategies. For example, you might learn breathing and relaxation techniques to employ in high-anxiety scenarios. These are tools you can use for the rest of your life.
Individuals with anxiety tend to develop unhelpful thought patterns. These patterns can negatively impact their ability to engage with the world around them. During CBT, anxious individuals challenge these patterns in a safe, supportive environment.
ADHD involves issues with executive functioning–including everything from self-control to flexibility of thought. As a result, those with ADHD may have more difficulty managing and controlling their impulses. This can cause or exacerbate stress in some individuals. Many people develop strategies to compensate for poor executive function skills. CBT helps you unravel these patterns by teaching you to evaluate your thinking. Often this helps make decisions about which strategies are causing more harm than good.
Yes–CBT helps professionals demonstrate stronger leadership skills, challenge negative thought patterns, increase concentration, and boost productivity. For those struggling with ADHD, we have found that CBT works best in combination with other wellness strategies. Some clients at Healthy Minds NYC also take medication or engage in life coaching to manage their mental health.
