Behavioral Change

About Behavioral Change

Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT was created to treat people with behavioral issues and mental disorders such as addictions, anxiety, phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder. The behavioral therapy or cognitive therapy will be conducted by a behavioral counselor who is also a psychiatrist and will ask probing questions and observe the patient in order to determine what kind of behavior needs to be treated. Often the family or friends of the patient would inform the therapist about the patient’s condition or behavioral patterns beforehand and the counselor will confirm it through his interview and assessment of the patient.  

What is Behavioral Therapy?

Behavioral therapy is a generalized term for the various types of treatment specifically designed for mental health disorders. The aim of this therapy is to observe, understand, identify and change unhealthy and potentially self-destructive behavioral patterns of mental health patients. CBT treatment relies upon the consensus of experts that all normal or abnormal behaviors are acquired through learning whether under normal circumstances or ones that are through traumatic events and that abnormal behavioral patterns can be changed via psychological therapeutic exercises.

Why Certain Cognitive Behaviors and Habbits Needs to be Cured

Bad habits and depression need to be treated, because it can cause serious problems with the patient’s health, finances and can even threaten their lives. Depression often leads to suicides while obsessive compulsive disorder can bankrupt the person suffering from it. Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety can help patients with anxiety and phobia to control themselves and overcome their fear and anxiety. Having impaired cognitive behaviors reduces a person’s ability to cope with the challenges in life and may put his/her life at risk in certain situations.

Common Types of Children and Adult Disorders

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

• Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

• Anxiety disorder

• Depression

• Bipolar disorder

• Learning disorders

• Conduct disorders

• Behavioral addiction

• Schizophrenia

• Anxiety

• ADHD/ADD

• Depression

• OCD

• Eating disorders

• Panic disorder

• PTSD

• Seasonal affective disorder

Types of Behavioral Therapy

1. Cognitive behavioral therapy – a combination of cognitive and behavioral therapy that focuses on a person’s current problems and how to solve them.

2. Cognitive behavioral play therapy – a therapy that is designed to be applied exclusively to children in order for the counselor to determine what a child is uncomfortable expressing or unable to express.

3. System desensitization – is a kind of therapy that teaches meditation and relaxing techniques to help defeat phobias.

4. Aversion therapy – this therapy is best suited for behavioral addiction.

Benefits of Behavioral Therapy

Since these mental and behavioral disorders are potentially dangerous to both the patients who suffer from them and the people they interact with, then putting them in behavioral therapy will help benefit the patients and their families as well as other people involved with them. Being treated and cured from these mental disorders is a life-changing even in and on itself and many many people who have once been through CBT treatment are feeling very relieved and happy for it. Having gone through therapy for depression or CBT therapy will help alleviate common mental illnesses that both adults and children suffer from like:

• Anger management issues

• Anxiety

• Paranoia

• Panic disorders

In addition, behavioral therapy can also help alleviate symptoms for:

• ADHD

• Obsessive compulsive disorder

• Bipolar disorder

• Self-mutilation

• Phobias

• PTSD

• Eating disorders

• Addiction

Get Help for Yourself or the People You Care About

If you’re suffering from schizophrenia, anxiety, OCD or depression or you know someone in your family who also suffers from these kinds of mental illnesses, then you may contact us here at My Whole Health and we will provide behavioral and/or CBT therapy for you. You must not delay the treatment for your behavioral disorder or your family member’s mental illness as these disorders can make you or your loved ones self-destructive. Of course, you may also seek help from the doctor in case you need medication besides cognitive therapy.