On average, this therapy lasts anywhere from 6-20 sessions. By the end, you’ll have gotten the results you were after, and there is no need for ongoing CBT. This is perfect for those in our residential program, as the average stay is about 30-45 days, with multiple sessions each week.

The sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and problem-focused. Your therapist will help you dive into your thinking and behavioural patterns. You’ll work to determine how negative patterns may contribute to your struggles, and you’ll learn how to create better, healthier thoughts and behaviours.

CBT is proven effective for treating many things:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Eating disorders
• Alcohol and drug abuse/addiction
• Process addictions such as gambling
• Severe mental illness
• Marital problems
• Trauma
• Irrational fears
• Insomnia
• Low self-esteem
• And more

While it can be used to treat a wide range of issues and even multiple occurring at the same time, there are a few core principles that CBT always follows:

• Psychological issues are partially based on faulty or unhelpful thinking
• Psychological issues are partially based on learned behavioural patterns
• Individuals with these issues can improve with proper management and coping mechanisms to help relieve symptoms and create better patterns and habits

By sticking to these principles, CBT is used successfully for so many things. Whether it’s CBT for mental health, addiction, or anything else, the techniques translate to many areas of life.

CBT for mental health works by helping you identify negative and unhelpful thinking and behavioural patterns, first and foremost. Once this is done, you’ll learn to reframe these and create more positive patterns, mindsets, and behaviours. This helps you look at and react to present situations differently, as well as react better in the future.

Negative thinking can present in many different ways, and each person is unique. However, some of the most common forms include:

• Thinking too much in black and white
• Ignoring anything positive and focusing hard on the negative
• Overgeneralizing
• Catastrophizing – automatically thinking or assuming the worst-case scenario will happen

Through various techniques and exercises, your therapist will walk you through these things and identify patterns specific to you. The focus is often placed on what’s going on in your life currently rather than the past issues that lead to your current problems. This helps you focus on the future and how to move forward in a better way. It may seem like you’re just having a conversation, but the sessions are often quite structured. Some strategies your therapist may use include:

• Keeping track of thoughts and feelings to review later
• Practicing healthy problem solving
• Role-playing various situations and scenarios
• Confronting stressful or anxiety-inducing situations and learning healthy coping mechanisms

These things will help you identify specific problem areas and how they’ve negatively affected you. You’ll then be able to restructure your thinking and learn how to solve problems healthily, and see things from a better perspective. Once you’ve had a few sessions, you can even start practicing these things at home as well.

Practice or “homework” is important, as developing new patterns and habits takes time and commitment. If you remain steadfast in your commitment to recovery, CBT will offer you fantastic results and benefits:

• You’ll gain awareness of negative or unhelpful thoughts and how they impact you emotionally
• You’ll challenge, change, and reframe your automatic responses
• You’ll have a more logical understanding of other’s actions
• You’ll be better able to accurately assess reality
• You’ll learn positive self-talk and improve your confidence
• You’ll learn relaxation techniques
• You’ll learn how to better cope with upsetting and/or triggering situations
• Better manage symptoms of mental illness – making a recovery from addiction that much easier
• Prevent a relapse of mental illness and/or addiction
• Cope with grief or loss in a healthy way
• Overcome emotional trauma
• You’ll learn to communicate better and more effectively
• Better manage chronic physical symptoms
• You’ll learn how to face your fears instead of running away from them

Ultimately, we use CBT for empowerment. The goal is to help you better manage and navigate your daily life. Living with constant negative self-talk paired with poor thinking and behavioural patterns is hard. It’s also not going to help in your battle with mental illness, which is why we focus on addressing this just as much as addiction.

Our facility is located centrally to both Ottawa and the GTA, allowing us to provide exceptional care to many people in Ontario. CBT for mental health is only one of many benefits of our inclusive rehab program. While cognitive behavioural therapy is popular and effective for many, we also recognize that not everyone is the same.

This is why we offer such a wide range of therapies, techniques, and other services. If you’re wondering whether CBT might work for you, consider three main things:

• Is your goal (or one of them) to learn practical skills for better managing our day-to-day life?
• Are you ready, willing, and committed to practicing strategies between sessions to see the most effective results?
• Are you ready and willing to be involved in your therapy? For example, journaling and/or keeping logs of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

These questions are a good place to start, but our professional counselors and therapists will help you determine the best treatment plan for yourself. They’ll ask about things like your physical and emotional symptoms, specific issues you’re currently struggling with, and your personal goals.

They may determine that the best course of action for you includes some of our other forms of therapy, either in place of CBT or in addition to:

• Solution-focused therapy
• Spiritual therapy
• Acceptance and commitment therapy
• Mindfulness-based stress therapy
• Work-life balance therapy
• And more

In addition to our many different forms of therapy, we offer a range of holistic therapies and methods as well. We believe that to get optimal, long-lasting results, you need a comprehensive approach that includes the mind, body, and spirit. This is why we combine multiple forms of therapy with other activities, such as:

• Yoga
• Journaling
• Art therapy
• Meditation
• Motivational speakers
• Healthy, chef-prepared meals
• NA, CA, and AA meetings, locally and in-house
• And more

These things have incredible benefits both on their own and combined. Yoga and meditation help you relax and maintain a clear head, while art and journaling can help you express yourself and learn things you may not have otherwise realized.

CBT is designed to help you create better patterns, coping mechanisms, and behaviours while improving your self-talk and self-esteem. Our holistic practices combine with this beautifully by helping you create a positive headspace and helping you stay mentally fit for intensive therapy. They may also help you create additional good habits, as things like yoga, meditation, and journaling are great practices to carry through into your regular life. There are plenty of mental, physical, and emotional benefits when you practice these things regularly.