Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain

Begin by meeting Dr. Satterfield’s patients-Carol, Michael, and Maria-each with something in their lives that could be helped with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). You will follow these patients throughout the course as you learn the basics of CBT, including how you can train your brain to improve motivation, management of emotions, and interpersonal skills.

Trace the roots of CBT and see how it upends the typical psychoanalysis process, focusing on daily events and emotions instead of past history. Watch as Dr. Satterfield performs an initial assessment of three new patients, helps them set SMART goals, and begins to collect data about their thoughts, emotions, and actions.

A fascinating aspect of CBT is the collaborative journey the therapist and patient take to create the patient’s case formulation, a living document that serves as a basis for an individual treatment plan and guides the therapy process. Watch as the doctor helps Michael unpack his anger to understand why certain situations make him furious.

Now that you are familiar with the basics of CBT, explore the Third Wave, which focuses on the process of cognition rather than its content. It's been described as Buddhist meditation meets CBT, and the research shows some surprising results!

Alleviate stress by learning how to quiet the two primary physiological stress pathways: one secretes the stress hormone called cortisol, and the other secretes epinephrine or adrenaline (often called the fight or flight response). See how CBT helps you examine coping styles to determine whether or not you're selecting the best adaptive strategies for you.

Contrast the emotions of anxiety and fear, and consider how each can feed the other. Use the SUDS hierarchy to perform a thorough analysis of situations that induce these feelings, then see how behavioral experiments can systematically desensitize you to the things you once feared or avoided.