I received the following email from a friend of mine and am sharing it with his permission, because I believe it’s a good summary of CBT and how it can help.

As someone who suffers from anxiety, depression, and was once an alcoholic, I’ve tried lots of different ways to deal with these problems, including, but not limited to, therapy, medication, and alcohol. CBT has been the most effective for me.

Here are some of the things CBT teaches:

The concept of “automatic thoughts”. This is where negative thoughts go round and round in our heads, they do it whether we want them to or not. CBT teaches you how to notice these automatic thoughts, how to challenge them, and hopefully how to re-wire them. When you notice your mind going off on a negative thought tangent, you can think to yourself “Oh, I’m having an automatic thought. I’m not going to listen to this one.”

Becoming mindful. This is a lot like meditation. You try to be in the moment and to be aware of everything that’s going on around you. You try to look at life as half-full. When you are mindful you realise that it’s just you and your thoughts, that you don’t have to listen to every automatic thought that goes through your mind.

Gratefulness. This is another way of looking at things. It’s a way of consciously trying to look at life as half-full. It’s about taking stock of all the good things in your life and not dwelling on the bad. It’s about realising that you are lucky to have as much as you do.

The key thing about CBT is that it is not about passing negative thoughts through your head. It’s about trying to re-wire your brain so that you can deal with those negative thoughts.

I have read about the criticisms of CBT. I don’t really want to get into that now, so I’m not going to mention all the criticisms here.

What I would say is that mainly they say that CBT sometimes takes a very one-size-fits-all approach. This is almost certainly true. I’m not saying that CBT is a placebo or that it’s always going to work. What I am saying is that it has worked for me. I have found it very helpful in dealing with anxiety and depression.