Introduction

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (C.B.T.) is a goal oriented, problem solving, focused, short term, interactive and empowering form of psychotherapy. C.B.T. is one of my treatment strategies.

There are a variety of processes that are utilized within C.B.T., however I believe the most important one is learning how to identify and understand  our thoughts, beliefs and cognitive patterns affect our feelings and behaviors.

For example, a person may come to my office complaining of low motivation, or low self-esteem, or performance anxiety or even panic attacks – and have no idea where it comes from.

I choose to use C.B.T. processes, as part of my therapeutic strategies simply because it has become so clear during the thousands of hours of therapy I provided, that a person’s conscious and unconscious thoughts have significant impact on their emotions and behaviors.

The process: I guide my clients in a process that helps them to clearly define their problems and their goals, and to understand the relationship between their thoughts, behaviors and feelings. We then examine and evaluate them to determine which are helpful and which are not. We get rid of the harmful thoughts and patterns and acquire new helpful ones.

As part of the therapy process, it needs to be clear that the client actually wants to achieve the stated goals. This requires an evaluation to see if there are any issues which may interfere with the actualization of the stated goals. Examples include fear of success, changing relationship dynamics and secondary gain issues. (Secondary gain refers to the benefit the person gets from the problem that is being solved.)

Please note: I do not only rely on the C.B.T. as the only treatment strategies, as I believe that true integration and growth requires more than just cognitive programming.

Although C.B.T. is relatively new in Israel, psychologists, health professionals and the public realize that it is a proven effective treatment.

Integration of C.B.T. and Hypnotherapy provides extra benefits

Simply stated C.B.T. is much more effective when used in conjunction with hypnosis. C.B.T. involves discovering, understanding and evaluating the truth, logic and consequences of one’s thoughts. However, since much or what we think and believe is operating on a subconscious level, it is important when doing C.B.T. to have both one’s conscious and subconscious thoughts available to evaluate. In fact, often our unconscious thoughts have greater influence on us than our conscious ones.

Hypnosis helps people to get in touch with their subconscious thoughts and experiences. Consequently C.B.T. in hypnosis is much more effective, then using C.B.T. on a conscious level only.

Another reason that hypnosis enhances the treatment process is that once the client learns what thoughts are helpful and what thoughts are harmful, hypnosis can be used to help the client to get rid of the negative thoughts, beliefs and patterns, and strengthen and habituate the positive ones.