Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is the most researched form of psychotherapy and a first-line treatment for depression, anxiety disorders, panic, social anxiety, PTSD, insomnia and OCD. It rests on a simple observation: thoughts, feelings and behaviors influence one another, and changing the thoughts and behaviors you can control shifts the feelings you cannot change directly. In practice, CBT is present-focused and skills-based. You and your therapist identify the specific situations that trigger distress, the automatic thoughts that arise, and the behaviors that follow, then test and revise those patterns.
Core techniques include cognitive restructuring, where you learn to catch distorted thinking such as catastrophizing or mind reading and weigh the evidence; behavioral activation, which rebuilds routine and rewarding activity in depression; and graded exposure, which reduces anxiety by approaching feared situations in steps. Homework between sessions is standard, because practice is where change happens. A course usually runs 12 to 20 sessions. Trials show CBT works as well as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression and offers better protection against relapse after treatment ends. It adapts well to video sessions. Specialized versions include CBT-I for insomnia, exposure and response prevention for OCD, and trauma-focused CBT for PTSD. Stedfast Psychiatry providers use CBT principles within visits and refer to CBT-trained therapists for a full weekly course when that is the right plan.
Where this applies at Stedfast
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Individual Psychotherapy and Counseling
- GAD
- Depression
- Panic Disorder