Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a specific psychotherapy that is used to affect emotions and perceptions in a positive manner. It involves talking about how you think and the way your thoughts, feelings and perceptions affect your behavior.<\/p>\n
The basic premise behind the therapy is that behavior, feelings and thoughts are based on cognition. And therefore it is believed that if the process of cognition can be modified, the perceptions and feelings can be aligned.<\/p>\n
CBT is a natural way of\u00a0treating depression<\/a>\u00a0that does not involve medication. It can also be used in conjunction with medication in severe cases of bipolar disorders and\u00a0manic episodes<\/a>. But in most moderate to mild cases CBT is one of the\u00a0natural remedies<\/a>\u00a0for depression that can successfully bypass conventional medications that are beset with dangerous side effects.<\/p>\n CBT is based on psychology. A psychologist evaluates the depressive symptoms on the basis of the study of human perceptions, behavior and emotions. Some of the premises that CBT works on are:<\/p>\n * Self evaluation is vital in a depressed individual. Negative beliefs lead to low self esteem and a sense of failure.
\nA depressed person thinks negatively about his\/her social and other skills. Once that belief takes roots it leads to assumptions that all other negative self assessments are also real.
\n* Depressed individuals are prone to remember negative experiences and ignore any positivism in life experiences. This leads to negative memories and unrealistic expectations.
\n* We usually \u2018talk\u2019 to ourselves. Whenever we face a situation that requires solutions, we \u2018talk\u2019 to ourselves to arrive at a decision. When depressed, an individual tends to derive unreal conclusions by indulging in negative \u2018self talk\u2019.
\n* Another way that we react to situations is through knee-jerk responses or what is termed as reflex actions. These are, in a sense, automatic thoughts. Psychological problems arise when these automatic thoughts are contrary to realities or normal behavior.
\n* Strong irrational beliefs like \u2018if I am intelligent I will be successful\u2019 or \u2018if I am a good person I will succeed\u2019 or \u2018bad things do not happen to good people\u2019 are illogical and based on a mistaken belief that they are always correct.
\n* \u2018Dooms-day\u2019 fears and over-generalization leads to irrational and stubborn beliefs that refuse to change leading a person to depression when such beliefs are defied.
\n* Although pessimism does not by itself cause depression it makes a person more vulnerable to depression. Pessimistic thinking results in distortions in cognition and negative \u2018self-talk\u2019 that eventually leads to depression.<\/p>\n