We are one of few therapy providers that practice “Third Wave” Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Why is this one of our preferred treatment methods? Because it works.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the clear standard leader for mental health interventions for conditions such as anxiety and phobia disorders. This is because CBT is the final iteration of talk therapy that has incorporated many of our ideas of cognition (how we think of the world) and neuroscience. The core idea of CBT is that it changes the way we think by physically changing our brain.
CBT is based on the idea that our brain is always changing.
The idea that is most damaging to psychology and to patient success is the idea that our brains are “stuck” one way or the other, or are static. That once we reach 25 years old, how we are is how we are and how we think is how we think, and that won’t change. Though this idea gives us something to depend on, and may be comforting in a way, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Our brains are built to constantly rewire themselves. Just because you think in a damaging way now doesn’t mean that you will think this way forever. We have an enormous capacity for rebirth unlike any other creature in the world. This ability to rewire the brain is called “neuroplasticity” and has been researched extensively.
Other interventions don’t dig deep enough to cause this rewiring. And medications simply reduce activity only in the connections that are the problem.
CBT goes a step farther, which is why it has been so successful in treating many mental conditions.
How CBT Therapy Works:
Our brains are a system of connections (synapses), and any disordered thinking is like a connection that causes harm. So in a way, our mental connections are like roads, and disordered thinking would be like a road with a massive chasm splitting the road and preventing crossing. Cars keep flying off the road and crashing (symbolic of our harmful emotional responses and the actions they cause: sleepiness, etc.).
Medications in essence reduce the number of cars going down that road, but the problem still remains. What CBT attempts to do is build a new road that avoids the chasm. Now in the short term, medications can help to prevent damage, but while traffic is reduced—that new road needs to be constructed by our cognition. Otherwise, as the medication loses its power over time (which it does) either more cars are sent down the road and damage is done or the medication is upped, and yet the underlying issue is never solved.
What is Third Wave CBT?
In short “Third Wave” CBT takes the essence of traditional CBT and infuses traditional techniques that have changed our brains and cognition for thousands of years. Three subfields can be used alone or in combination for treatment. These subfields are mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy.
These new “mindful” additions to CBT make it much more powerful, as these concepts have been proven to enhance our neuroplasticity. A fact that has been widely studied and proven. In this way, the marriage of old CBT with these mindfulness-based approaches was inevitable, as they enhance each other in very powerful ways.
Effective CBT treatments for conditions that include:
- Depression
- Trauma
- Sleep Disorders
- Anxiety
- Panic Disorders
- OCD
- Prolonged Grief
