Contemporary psychological knowledge and insights about CBT therapy
Cognitive Reconstruction literally means reconstructing an established way of thinking and is one of the prime objectives of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
It is made possible by the ability of the human brain to adapt and create new neural pathways at the molecular level – known technically as Neuroplasticity.
We All Have Scientific Minds.
Whether you recognise it or not, your mind takes a scientific approach to generating and maintaining your internal ‘hypotheses’ all of the time.
We have already established that it is NOT events that cause emotions (events don’t cause feelings), but rather the ‘meaning’ of those events that then create the emotional ‘response’.
So having the thought that ‘I am ugly’ is likely to trigger feelings of shame, guilt or sadness.
As humans we tend to make the assumption that the ‘way the World works’ is the same for everybody – that our model of the world (our Worldview) is experienced in the same way for all people living on the planet.
This is not actually true but is, in fact, just the way that we think it works!
We are all aware of the idea that some things can lead us to ‘feel’ a certain way, whether that’s the rain making us feel miserable, or somebody’s disapproval making us feel ‘down’ about ourselves.
However much we might buy into this ‘idea’ it is NOT a true representation of what actually happens inside the human mind.
There is always more than one way of making sense of our experiences.
In this important principle of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy we should try to be aware of the fact that the way WE perceive any particular experience, or extract a ‘meaning’ about something is NOT the only possible solution.
There are five CBT principles underpinning CBT therapy.
CBT (cognitive Behavioural Therapy) was originally developed in the 1960’s by Aaron Beck who argued that our internal dialogue (the voice inside our own heads) and rationales were more influential to our feelings than what we might ‘say’ out loud.