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Imagine the following situation:
A friend is due to meet you for dinner at your house at 7:00. But it's now past 8:00 and there's been no sign of her - not even a phone call.
How are you going to feel about this?
Well, as this diagram makes clear, there's more than one possible answer: | What do You think | What you Feel
| What you do
| | "She might have been hurt on the way here." | Worried or anxious | Call hospitals to find out if she's there | | "She didn't bother to let me know she was delayed." | Annoyed or angry | Give her a row, or act chilly, when she does show up | | "It doesn't matter to me whether people are on time." | Indifferent | Nothing in particular | | "I needed the time to tidy the house up anyway." | Relieved | Relax and enjoy yourself |
You'll notice that your thoughts about your friend's lateness don't affect just your feelings - they can also influence the actions you take.
And while it might seem silly to consult a psychotherapist over nothing more than a dinner date, the basic principle is exactly the same when it comes to major and more complex problems. As the philosopher Epictetus said almost 2,000 years ago: The thing that upsets people is not what happens but what they think it means Many people - not just therapy clients - routinely distress themselves and others with random understanding of what is going on. Sometimes this is done out of blind habit, or under the influence of a bad mood or bodily discomfort; sometimes it happens for quite other reasons. Challenging and, at times, changing one's doubtful interpretations of events is much of the cognitive work of CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Changing problem behaviours is the other aspect of our work.
For example, if you are afraid to go in a lift, we can usually extinguish that fear if you are willing to pluck up the courage to take one short trip in a lift and see what happens. It's likely that the journey will be uneventful, giving you evidence that lift travel need not be stressful. The therapy works because your conditioned fear reaction is not being reinforced - that is, the lift doesn't fall or get stuck for hours.
We'll support you to build up your exposure to the feared situation until the fear is reduced to a manageable level. On the other hand, if you give in to the fear and avoid lifts, you can pretty much count on spending the rest of your life being afraid of them.
Or, to give another example, let's imagine that you become depressed after being made redundant from a much loved job. You may feel that it's useless to try to live a normal life, since your energy and ability to enjoy things seem to have vanished. You probably expect that pursuing your goals will merely lead to disappointment, frustration or failure - in other words, you have a sense of futility. Acting on these feelings, you drop out of your usual activities and social relations. The result: your life becomes even more constricted and unrewarding, and your morale goes still deeper into the hole.
What we are likely to do in CBT is move you gradually back towards leading a normal life, without waiting for it to feel as good as it once did. If you diligently follow this plan, the renewed contact with your friends, family and regular activities should eventually bring your mood and feelings back to normal. This is because, before you became depressed, your usual activities and relationships were associated with more energy and enjoyment than you are feeling now. We are trying to take advantage of those connections as a means of raising your morale to a more satisfactory level.
CBT has been thoroughly researched and has been shown to be highly effective in the treatment of many conditions including:
- Depression and mood swings
- Shyness and social anxiety
- Panic attacks and phobias
- Obsessions and compulsions (OCD and related conditions)
- Chronic anxiety or worry Post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSD and related conditions)
- Eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia) and obesity
- Insomnia and other sleep problems
- Difficulty establishing or staying in relationships
- Problems with marriage or other relationships you're already in
- Job, career or school difficulties
- Feeling 'stressed out'
- Insufficient self-esteem (accepting or respecting yourself)
- Inadequate coping skills, or ill-chosen methods of coping
- Passivity, procrastination and 'passive aggression'
- Substance abuse, co-dependency and 'enabling'
- Trouble keeping feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, eagerness, excitement, etc., within bounds
- Over-inhibition of feelings or expression
In addition we offer therapy to help with debriefing, bereavement and loss, harassment and bullying, and violence.
For many conditions one-to-one therapy is the best way forward. Where a relationship is crumbling, and both partners wish to improve things, they may attend sessions together.
Group therapy can be an effective means of changing thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
We have a long history of helping people to change their lives for the better.
Read testimonials from satisfied clients or make an appointment for an initial assessment interview by calling 0141 331 0750. You can also email the Centre of Therapy in confidence with any issue you may have.
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Susan Grasekamp 
Sarah McFadyen 
Margaret Tavendale 
About Therapy