People are starting to recognise the term CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy but have you noticed that some therapists call themselves Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapists (CBH)?
This blog explains the development of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with hypnosis as they are increasingly used together to help clients with a wide range of issues.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?
CBT is a form of counselling that is especially helpful for people who are suffering from stress, anxiety and depression. Nevertheless, it can help many other psychological problems.
CBT is an umbrella term that describes several approaches to helping people with their thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and behaviours.
In the therapy room, compared to other counselling approaches, there may be more discussion, agreed homework tasks and psychoeducational. There can be a lot going on with helping someone with CBT and CBT is continuing to develop.
It’s a collaborative approach so the client and counsellor talk and explore things together. The therapist guides the client through ‘guided discovery’ to find the solution to the problem. So the therapist might use different questioning techniques and develop a formulation with the client so that learning takes place.
CBT is built on Eastern philosophy that recognises the importance of the present time rather than just focusing on the past or the future. Therapists often call it ‘the here and now’.
The idea is that the client is empowered to notice how they think and feel and then find evidence to test out their negative thoughts or beliefs so proving that they don’t need to stay in a cycle of negativity. It’s about finding a way out of a problem or learning to accept what can’t be changed.
The first wave of CBT started in the 1950s when psychologists were developing Cognitive Therapy. Cognitive Therapy is a way that counsellors help people to understand and change their negative thoughts. Behavioural Therapy, was also being developed. Behavioural Therapy is about helping people change what they do and look for new ways of behaving.
Then as these two approaches integrated a second wave started in the 1970s. At that time, two psychoanalysts, Aaron T. Beck, a psychiatrist, and Albert Ellis, a psychologist became known for their work on helping people with anxiety and depression. These forms of CBT in the second wave are called:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – Beck.
- Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT) – Ellis
These two approaches are well known.
Today CBT helps clients with a wide range of issues.
Since the 1990s the third wave of CBT has developed. Within this third wave are more approaches that have a slightly different focus including:
- Dialectic Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Today, CBT is a form of counselling provided in the UK by the National Health Service as it has got a lot of research and evidence to support the effectiveness of its use, and it is used in many countries around the world.
Increasingly private practitioners have completed more training to use CBT either as an approach to their counselling practice or to integrate with other therapies.
CBT can be used with acupuncture, Reiki, homoeopathic treatment and many more complementary therapies.
One complementary therapy that works well with CBT is hypnosis and there is lots of research to support its increased efficacy.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH)?
Hypnosis is a natural state of focused attention.
It is a tool that can influence the state of consciousness, although from a CBH view this isn’t about altering the state of consciousness, rather it’s about working with a client to use their own resources to help them get to this hypnotic place where they can accept positive suggestions to help them. It’s about finding the hypnotic mindset to change.
So hypnotherapy uses hypnosis with therapy.
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH) is a name for the integration of CBT and hypnosis so you may see some practitioners using this title.
Hypnotherapy has already been shown to help a huge range of problems from some medical conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) to emotional problems such as stress, anxiety, depression and habits or performance issues.
Later, Bryant et al (2005) reported the benefits of using CBT and hypnosis for stress disorders. Since then many more studies have shown the efficacy of hypnosis and CBT together.
So if you need help with a work or personal problem, CBH might be the answer. It’s fast and effective plus the hypnosis is relaxing. Commonly people need 3 -7 sessions weekly depending on the presenting issue.
Take the first step to change and find out more about CBT and Hypnosis. Contact Linda from Awaken the Change for a free initial consultation. Appointments online or in-person in Bournemouth.
