Support Network
We live in a world with billions of people and aren’t suppose to go it alone. Look around and see who you can include in your support network (family, friend, support group, spiritual community, etc). Remember you aren’t alone.
What’s CBT?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is about taking action to reduce or eliminate your symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic, anger, guilt, shame or other issues you may be experiencing in your life.
The word cognitive means your thought processes and the theory of CBT is that your thoughts and beliefs create your moods which effect your behavior and physical reactions. It is like a babies mobile, you can’t have one of these aspects of yourself going on without the other. CBT also includes looking at your environment and how it may be influencing your moods.
CBT teaches you to be your own therapist, so when distressing situations occur you will learn how to figure out what you are thinking and challenge your thoughts whether they are true or not and develop new thoughts. It is like retraining your brain! It is important to remember that just because you think something doesn’t mean that it is true. Thoughts only have as much power as you give them! Dr. Aaron Beck pioneered CBT in the early 1960’s. CBT has been shown to be the most effective and well studied theory of psychotherapy due to decades of clinical trials with positive results.
If you are looking for TOOLS to get better than CBT is for you. I see that clients are getting more educated about therapy and seeking out CBT because they have read how successful it works or know others who have benefited from CBT. I continue to meet new clients who have already been to therapists and say they want tools and not just support to be able to feel better. That’s what I teach my clients, tools!
In my practice I use the workbook called “Mind Over Mood” by Dr. Dennis Greenberger and Dr. Christine Padesky. It is an excellent way to learn CBT tools and allows my clients to continue learning new skills between sessions.
Physical Health
Being active helps relieve stress in your body and can increase energy and improve sleep. Find something that you enjoy so it doesn’t feel like exercise, if you look forward to the activity, you’ll be more likely to stick with it.
Mental Health
Mental health is something that is important to work on everyday. Being mindful of your thoughts, beliefs and values can help you make good decisions which in turn will increase your happiness and well being.
Helpful Tips
Breath—always remember to take a breath when you are feeling overwhelmed. Breath in for 4 seconds and breath out for 4 seconds, if you can do this for 3-4 minutes.
Journaling—Writing our thoughts and feelings down helps us get them out of our heads so we won’t ruminate which makes you more depressed.
You are not alone—Sadly there is still a stigma about mental health so most people don’t share what they may be feeling with others which in turn is isolating and makes you feel alone. Reach out to just one person you trust, you may be surprised to find out they feel the same way.
FYI—we all have 80,000-90,000 thoughts a day, that’s a lot of thoughts to deal with!
Whatever struggle you may be going through doesn’t define you as a person. You may have depression but don’t label yourself as a “depressed person”, there is still a lot more to you then how you feel.
Gratitude—research shows that happy people are the most grateful. Write down everything you are grateful for or just do it in your head when you are driving or in a stressful situation. It is important to remember everything we are grateful for. It is too easy to get stuck in our negative thoughts and forget who and what we have in our lives.
Schedule
Dr. Osborn specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is the most effective and well studied modality of psychotherapy.
Her clients include adults, couples, families & adolescents. Dr. Osborn teaches her clients to be their own therapists so their therapy can be short-term and they will learn lifelong skills to improve their mental health!