Depression is caused by chemical disbalance in the brain, how come cognitive behavioral therapy can work for depression? How does this work? Does this mean our thoughts affect our chemicals in our brain?
In: Biology
Thoughts can produce chemicals as much as chemicals can produce thoughts.
If you thought there was a tiger behind you, I bet that thought would produce a lot of chemicals, right? Specifically, it would produce some adrenaline.
CBT works by creating habits that interrupt thoughts that produce more sad chemicals.
One theory is that depression is a feedback loop of chemicals and thoughts. Sad thought lead to **sad self talk** which leads to sad beliefs which lead to sad chemicals which lead to more sad thoughts.
CBT helps us build a habit of recognizing and predicting the **sad self talk** step and interrupt this feedback loop by replacing sad self talk with something else — or to challenge our sad self talk. This breaks the cycle.
Evidence seems to show that this works pretty well.
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