CBT didn’t work for me…what do I do now?

Cognitive therapies like CBT have grown in popularity over the past few years as they’re marketed as a quick way to see results from therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: The main goal of CBT is to explore the role of cognitions (thoughts) in how people feel and act. The belief is that if we change our thoughts we will shift behaviors and feelings. In sessions we work to identify thoughts that are triggering and replace those with more supportive ones. CBT takes more of a “coaching” future focus look at the problems on hand.

While cognitive approaches like CBT can work wonders for some clients, for others they fall a little flat and may have them feeling at a loss after their sessions as to why things aren’t sticking.

One downfall of cognitive approaches is that they can often support a defense mechanism called intellectualizing.

Intellectualizing is a safety mechanism that we sometimes use to avoid feeling our emotions.

Because actually feeling our emotions can be pretty uncomfortable.

When we use intellectualizing, instead of feeling our emotions we hang out at a cognitive level, focusing on analysis of the problem to stay within the realm of rational thought. Intellectualizing isn’t bad, in fact, it can be really helpful! It can support us with problem-solving and can provide insight into our lived experiences. However, intellectualizing can create a block in the therapeutic process when we use it excessively as a way to avoid connecting to our bodies. Trauma can be stored within the body so if we aren’t connecting to how we are feeling, it can be difficult to process and move through it.

If you resonate with this you might benefit more from an integrative approach to therapy. An integrative approach can combine both cognitive therapies and body-based techniques such as somatic therapy.

Somatic Therapy: A body based modality that helps to heal trauma and other stress disorders when we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze.

If you haven’t used a body-based approach before it can be a bit overwhelming at first. Pendulating between exploring our body’s sensations and mindfulness practices and then coming back to the cognitive to reconcile what those mean to us, can be a great way to dip our toe into something new and unfamiliar.

If you’re interested in exploring an integrative or body-based approach to your healing please book a discovery call to see if it would be a good fit for you.