What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
CBT treatment looks at your cognitions (how you think and process things) and your behaviours (how you may act or react in certain situations). There is however a very important third aspect, and that is our feelings and emotions. What we do in this treatment is look at these three aspects both separately and together, observing how feelings, thoughts and behaviours interact with one another. Are these helpful cycles, or unhelpful? And if these are unhelpful, how might we look at modifying this.
CBT is a structured, focused, and practical treatment which looks at identifying specific parts of your life that you want to explore. This treatment often involves homework or home practices to keep you in a therapy mindset both inside and outside of sessions. CBT can be short or longer term and aims to provide you with tools and techniques to better identify, understand and overcome your difficulties.
What is Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy?
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a talking therapy which focuses on bringing unconscious processes to the conscious part of our mind. So, what is the unconscious? Simply, it is the parts of our mind that we are not aware of. This treatment keeps important focus on the therapeutic relationship between you and your therapist, forming a bond like no other, and the opportunity to explore things more deeply for personal growth and development.
In psychoanalytic psychotherapy sessions are not guided but are open for you to explore whatever you choose to bring with the support of a therapist’s observation and interpretation. And yes, the Freudian couch is a real thing! Psychoanalytic psychotherapy offers you the opportunity to either sit with your therapist chair to chair or lay on the psychoanalytic couch during treatment. This therapy can be medium term but is often a long-term therapy.
CBT or Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy?
When working in a CBT format, our work is more structed, present focused and practical. We are looking to make cognitive and behavioural changes that are actively worked on outside of sessions. This is engaged with by identifying goals, setting tasks and activities to implement change, and engaging in worksheets and other resources which may challenge your way of thinking.
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When working psychoanalytically, this approach looks at working more deeply with the psyche and is focused on longer-term personal growth. These sessions are guided by you and offer a space with which to speak freely about anything that may come to mind. It gives an opportunity to be more explorative in your thinking and for this to be facilitated by further query and interpretation from a therapist.