How is cognitive therapy different from simply telling people to cheer up?
In: Other
Because it’s therapy, and not “telling you to cheer up”.
Therapy involves various techniques where you write and think about your thoughts with the goal of analyzing them or viewing them from a different angle, and challenging your cognitive distortions.
For example, you text a girl, and she doesn’t reply back.
A mentally healthy and stable person might think “*eh, she probably didn’t have time to reply, or is already in a relationship so she’s not open to being pursued by other people at the moment, no big deal*”
If you’re suffering from depression, your thoughts might be something along the lines of “*oh my god, she hates me, she didn’t reply because I’m ugly and unworthy of attention*”.
CBT helps you to get rid of these exaggerated or irrational thought patterns by recognizing that they’re irrational and exaggerated (i.e. cognitive distortions), and by fixing the way you THINK about things, it improves the way you feel.
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