Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain

Dr. Satterfield's patients can be helped with cognitive behavioral therapy; following these patients as one learns the basics of CBT; how one can train the brain to improve motivation; management of emotions and interpersonal skills.

The roots of CBT; it upends the typical psychoanalysis process; daily events and emotions instead of past history; Dr. Satterfield performs an initial assessment of three new patients; helps them set SMART goals; 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 basis for an individual treatment plan; the doctor helps Michael understand why certain situations make him furious.

After being familiar with the basics of CBT, exploring the Third Wave; it focuses on the process of cognition rather than its content; it is described as Buddhist meditation meets CBT; the research shows some surprising results.

Learning how to quiet the two primary physiological stress pathways; one secretes cortisol and the other secretes epinephrine or adrenaline; CBT helps to examine coping styles; determining whether or not one is selecting the best adaptive strategies.

Contrasting the emotions of anxiety and fear; how each can feed the other; the SUDS hierarchy to perform an analysis of situations that bring these feelings; behavioral experiments can desensitize one to the things once feared or avoided.