How cognitive therapy works Cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy are closely related. Cognitive therapists believe thoughts, rather than actions, are what affect feelings most. Behavioral therapists try to help people change behavior, theorizing that feelings come from actions. Melinda A. Stanley, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, uses a combination of cognitive and behavioral therapies, called cognitive behavioral therapy. When we work with patients to help them change the way they feel, we focus on thoughts and behaviors creating those feelings.
People do have losses, and fearful things happen in their lives.
We try to help patients be more objective, and to treat their thoughts as hypotheses and decide if they're really true. Cognitive therapy requires hard work. You learn to recognize habitual thinking errors . Recording thoughts in a diary can help. Effectiveness Cognitive therapies are the most heavily researched forms of psychotherapy.