How CBT can help with different mental health problems
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
What is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
GAD is a type of anxiety disorder characterised by persistent, excessive, uncontrollable worry about multiple aspects of daily life such as health, finances, family, relationships and work. People with GAD find themselves anticipating disaster and their worry is frequently out of proportion to the actual likelihood of the feared event happening. Worries can shift from day to day and often feature "what ifs" and worst case scenarios.
Worrying leads to significant distress, feelings of apprehension, fear and an overall sense that something bad is going to happen.
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Excessive worrying can lead to a number of unhelpful behaviours which are designed to make the person feel safe and reduce their anxiety. These include avoidance, reassurance seeking, checking and overplanning and preparing.
Worrying interferes with a persons daily life and their ability to function with everyday activities. Constant worrying can leave people feeling exhausted. It also leads to physical symptoms such as muscle tension, restlessness, fatigue, problems with concentration, irritability and difficulties sleeping.
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NICE guidelines recommend 12-15 sessions.​​
How CBT helps
CBT helps people to break the cycle of chronic worry through identifying, challenging and changing the unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs that are fuelling worry.
CBT directly addresses the two core components that keep worry going, the unhelpful cognitive habits and the problematic behavioural responses.
It helps people to
deconstruct the process of worry and see it not as an uncontrollable force, but as a mental habit that can be understood and changed. It helps people develop specific strategies to challenge the content of their worries and alter their relationship with worry itself.
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CBT can help people to understand how thoughts about uncertainty and threat lead to feelings of anxiety and the ensuing physical responses in the body. CBT helps people develop strategies to challenge the content of worries and learn to tolerate uncertainty.
It helps people identify and reduce unhelpful behaviours that keep the worry cycle going and feed the anxiety. It helps people to address behaviours such as avoidance, checking and reassurance seeking,
CBT helps people to develop healthier coping mechanisms, building overall resilience and self-confidence. It helps people to manage their worry in a more helpful and healthy way, improving their quality of life. It helps people to re-engage with life and activities they may have been avoiding or unable to do previously due to worries and anxiety.