Behavioural therapy, as the name suggests, focuses on your behaviour. How can you understand why people show certain behaviour? Learning theory plays an important role in understanding behaviour. Cognitive therapy focuses more on thoughts and is based on the belief that thoughts (partly) determine how you feel. These two schools of thought complement each other well to form cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is currently one of the most widely used forms of therapy in the Netherlands.
The starting point of CBT is that feelings, thoughts and behaviour have a strong mutual relationship. For example, negative thoughts are more likely to evoke negative feelings, but behaviour also influences how you feel and think. CBT examines how these three aspects work together in the things that you encounter. For example, it may be that certain behaviour originated with a thought, but that the behaviour has now become so ”normal” to someone that the thought is no longer consciously linked to the behaviour. By first becoming clear (again) how certain patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings work in you, CBT can help you to change these patterns into patterns that are more appropriate for your life. This involves the use of, for example, exposure, thought and behavioural experiments and homework assignments.
Are negative feelings hampering your day-to-day life?
Our therapists will gladly help you in your own language. Together with you, they will look for a solution with which you can deal with the problem yourself. Apply here for a non-committal introductory meeting.