Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Isn’t Just Venting
First of all, let me just say that there’s nothing wrong with venting. In fact, venting is something we all need to be able to do from time to time with close supportive people. If you worry about burdening people in your life with your problems, check out this article on how to vent without being a burden. If you don’t have any supportive people in your life, check out this article on how to build a support system outside of therapy.
Venting, while it usually feels good in the moment to get things off your chest, is not how therapy actually helps you to make changes in your life and feel better in the long run. If you’ve been using therapy, mainly as a safe place to vent, you’ve probably noticed that you feel better at the end of a session and you’ve probably grown to feel safe and trusting with your therapist. All good things.
You may have also noticed, however, that not much else seems to be changing or improving. You may even be thinking, “I don’t think therapy is working. I should just quit. My therapist sucks. My problems are stupid and I'm just making a big deal out of nothing." This is the biggest downside of using therapy strictly as a place to vent. It can put a serious dent in any hope you had that things could change and it's also a red flag you're not actually doing cognitive behavioral therapy.
Use CBT Therapy Skills to Build a Support System (Outside Therapy)
Before you write off therapy entirely, however, consider that there might be another way to make use of your time in sessions. We believe cognitive behavioral therapy sessions should be focused on tangible skills, not just venting. While venting might feel nice in the short term, in cbt therapy we'd rather help you work to build a healthy support system outside of therapy, so that you have people to vent with long-term and cbt therapy sessions can be used for more advanced coping skills.
In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, We Dig Deeper
Any therapist will spend some time just listening, but ideally cbt therapy should go far beyond just listening and comforting. In cognitive behavioral therapy, our main goal initially is to help you tune in to the thoughts, feelings, and impulses that come up for you while you're telling a story. Usually this means interrupting your story and redirecting your attention to these underlying pieces because that's where cbt therapy helps to break unhealthy patterns.
In cognitive behavioral therapy, your therapist will likely inject pretty frequently to ask you things like:
What thought was running through your mind in that moment?
What do you notice happens after you give into that impulse to ______?
Where does that feeling show up in your body when you’re in a moment like that?
What do you normally do or feel like doing when you’re feeling that way?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Focuses on Skills
When you're sharing about something upsetting in a cognitive behavioral therapy session, your therapist is assessing what type of support would be most helpful to you in that moment. This could mean helping you identify what you're feeling and validate those feelings for yourself. It could also mean going over specific coping skills such as communication techniques or skills for reducing physical sensations of anxiety or anger. In cbt therapy, we're looking for patterns in how you think, feel, and act so that we can offer you new tools to help shift those habits in ways that will benefit your mood and your relationships.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Goes Beyond the Session
In cognitive behavioral therapy, you will walk out of almost every session with a specific plan for how you're going to actually put into practice all the things you just learned. CBT therapy involves homework, but not the kind you hated in high school. CBT therapy focuses on running experiments in your life - a.k.a. trying out new skills in the real world, and seeing what you notice. If you're leaving sessions with no idea what to practice until your next session, odds are good you're not doing cbt therapy.
We can help.
If you or someone you love is struggling with anxiety, depression, or the effects of trauma, please reach out. We offer cognitive behavioral therapy in Orlando and online throughout the state of Florida. Call today or send us your info and we’ll reach out for a free consultation to see if one of our therapists would be a good fit.
