Dublin Counsellor Blog
Counselling and CBT therapy are the SAME!
Hey, wanna know a secret? Counselling and CBT therapy, or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) are the SAME THING!!!
People who come to therapy often say ‘I have tried counselling and it hasn’t worked, I want to try CBT therapy’. In fairness, it’s a reasonable request, try something different.
But people have often heard that CBT is not about the past, only dealing with the here and now; it takes six sessions to fix someone; and there are tips and tricks and short cuts that will bypass or trick our mind into recovery.
Unfortunately…
Unfortunately, and this is another secret, NONE of this is true. And clients believing any of these actually prolongs the therapy itself. We have to look at your past as the lessons we didn’t learn, and are repeating today, are still there to be learned.
To fix something as enduring and deep as the mind in six sessions is, alas, wishful thinking. It’s like wanting to be a qualified engineer in six months or buy a house for 600 euro.
There are NO shortcuts or ‘tricks’. The mind is like the ocean, something that has to be approached as a whole, and cannot be manipulated or tricked for long.
CBT therapy
Counselling and CBT therapy use the same skills and interventions. CBT evolved out of counselling theory, not as something separate.
The important thing about therapy is the therapeutic relationship. Here, normal relationship parameters apply. The less you know someone, including your therapist, the less trust there is, the less revealing you will be with them. This is the time and investment element that cannot be bypassed.
As your trust deepens, you get to explore your depths and this is where real and solid change is made.
For a wider description of how CBT works, and to see my own availability for CBT, check out: