Cognitive Behavioral Therapist Quotes

CBT & Neuropsychology Centre expert in treatment of Psychological and neuropsychological injuries. Our expert make accurate Medico legal reports within short time. ~ CBT

The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of 'identity.' ~ Alfred Korzybski

Don't ask why the patient is the way he is, ask for what he would change. ~ Milton H. Erickson

Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within. ~ Marcus Aurelius

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled - she'll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias - if that is truly the problem. If it's not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she'll have a problem soon. Her "illness" now will be an internalized self-reproach: "Why don't I enjoy this like everyone else?" The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem. ~ Laurie A. Helgoe

Thus polyvictimization or complex trauma are "developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas" (Ford, 2005) because they place the victim at risk not only for recurrent stress and psychophysiological arousal (e.g., PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression) but also for interruptions and breakdowns in healthy psychobiological, psychological, and social development. Complex trauma not only involves shock, fear, terror, or powerlessness (either short or long term) but also, more fundamentally, constitutes a violation of the immature self and the challenge to the development of a positive and secure self, as major psychic energy is directed toward survival and defense rather than toward learning and personal development (Ford, 2009b, 2009c). Moreover, it may influence the brain's very development, structure, and functioning in both the short and long term (Lanius et al., 2010; Schore, 2009).

Complex trauma often forces the child victim to substitute automatic survival tactics for adaptive self-regulation, starting at the most basic level of physical reactions (e.g., intense states of hyperarousal/agitation or hypoarousal/immobility) and behavioral (e.g., aggressive or passive/avoidant responses) that can become so automatic and habitual that the child's emotional and cognitive development are derailed or distorted. What is more, self-integrity is profoundly shaken, as the child victim incorporates the "lessons of abuse" into a view of him or herself as bad, inadequate, ~ Christine A. Courtois

There are a variety of techniques to help people change the kind of thinking that leads them to become depressed. These techniques are called cognitive behavioral therapy. ~ Irving Kirsch

When I force myself to utter the awkward phrase, "I am grateful," I actually start to feel a bit more grateful...It's basic cognitive behavioral therapy: Behave in a certain way, and your mind will eventually catch up with your actions. ~ A.J. Jacobs

The ignorance about the importance of cognitive differences and the behavioral dynamics that operate within their Board is contributing to the generally poor performance of Board. ~ Pearl Zhu

As technology increasingly takes over knowledge-based work, the cognitive skills that are central to today's education systems will remain important; but behavioral and non-cognitive skills necessary for collaboration, innovation, and problem solving will become essential as well. ~ Klaus Schwab

Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

Conscientiousness

Not every anxious person is conscientious, but because you're reading a CBT-based self-help book, there's a good chance you're at least moderately high in conscientiousness - a personality trait associated with having a strong work ethic and a thorough, orderly approach to tasks. People high in conscientiousness often get particularly great results from learning cognitive behavioral principles and skills. Why? They tend to like the systematic nature of a cognitive behavioral approach. They do well because they work hard to understand themselves and are diligent in applying their learning to their lives. Anxious people sometimes underestimate how conscientious they are, so make sure you give yourself enough credit for your conscientiousness.
It's important to understand that conscientiousness is not the same thing as perfectionism. For example, perfectionists might spend so long trying to make something "just right" that they don't have any willpower left over for other important tasks. Perfectionism and conscientiousness tend to be associated with opposite outcomes. For example, in a study of older adults, perfectionism was associated with an increased risk or mortality. Conscientiousness was associated with a decreased risk. There are big advantages to reducing perfectionism but retaining your conscientiousness! ~ Alice Boyes

Many of the benefits of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) can be obtained without going into therapy. There are a number of self-help books, CDs and computer programs that have been used to treat depression and some of these have been tested in clinical trials with positive results. I can particularly recommend these two books. One is 'Control Your Depression', the lead author of which is Peter Lewinsohn, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon ... The other book that I can recommend with confidence is 'Feeling Good' by the psychiatrist David Burns. 'Control Your Depression' emphasizes behavioral techniques like increasing pleasant activities, improving social skills and learning to relax. 'Feeling Good' puts greater emphasis on changing the way people think about themselves. But both books include both cognitive and behavioral techniques. ~ Irving Kirsch

Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind. ~ Gautama Buddha

Two Awesome Hours in the Morning After identifying your MIT, you need to turn it into a calendar item and book it as early in your day as possible. Dan Ariely, a Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics, suggests that most people are most productive and have the highest cognitive functioning in the first two hours after they're fully awake. In a Reditt Ask Me Anything, Ariely wrote: One of the saddest mistakes in time management is the propensity of people to spend the two most productive hours of their day on things that don't require high cognitive capacity (like social media). If we could salvage those precious hours, most of us would be much more successful in accomplishing what we truly want. ~ Kevin Kruse

Everybody has their reasons. ~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The development of a working alliance is crucial because it addresses a psychic phobia associated with relationships that is common in complex trauma clients. As we discussed, when primary relationships are sources of profound disillusionment, betrayal, and emotional pain, any subsequent relationship with an authority figure who offers an emotional bond or other assistance might be met with a range of emotions, such as fear, suspicion, anger, or hopelessness on the negative end of the continuum and idealization, hope, overdependence, and entitlement on the positive. Therapy offers a compensatory relationship, albeit within a professional framework, that has differences from and restrictions not found in other relationships. On the one hand, the therapist works within professional and ethical boundaries and limitations in a role of higher status and education and is therefore somewhat unattainable for the client. On the other, the therapist's ethical and professional mandate is the welfare of the client, creating a perception of an obligation to meet the client's needs and solve his or her problems. Furthermore, the therapist is expected to both respect the client's privacy and accept emotional and behavioral difficulties without judgment, while simultaneously being entitled to ask the client about his or her most personal and distressing feelings, thoughts and experiences. Developing a sense of trust in the therapist, therefore, is both expected and fraught with inherent diff ~ Christine A. Courtois

Great leaders don't lead others with bitterness or resentfulness of past mistakes, they lead with hope and knowledge of the past to inform greater decision making in the future. ~ Spencer Fraseur

He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Consumption is a universal phenomenon. All humans consume varieties of products, many of which beyond actual necessity, because it activates the brain's reward center. And the more a certain product activates the reward center with its unique characteristics or its predominant social stature, the more that product gets chiseled into the long-term memory of the consumer, making it a fundamental part of the individual's psychological well being. Thus the human mind grows a deep psychological bond with a product. And this bond can grow so strong in time that it would defend itself from all sorts of criticisms. It is the brain's way to maintain its internal purely individualistic well being. Hence, a strong psychological bond between the mind and a product slowly not only becomes invincible to criticisms, but also, develops its own cognitive immune system against such criticisms. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Increased physical activity during the school day can help children's attention, classroom behavior, and achievement test scores. Meanwhile, the decline of play is closely linked to ADHD; behavioral problems; and stunted social, cognitive, and creative development. ~ Darell Hammond

Behavioral Shifts to Overcome Excessive Hesitancy

Important: So far we've been focusing on how tweaking your thinking can help shift your behavior. This is important, but it's only half the story. People are usually quite good at identifying how changes in thoughts or feelings may lead to changes in behavior, such as "When I have more energy, I'll do more exercise" or "When I have more ideas, I'll take more action." However, people tend to underestimate the impact of changing their behavior on their thoughts and feelings, such as "When I exercise more, l'll have more energy" or "When I take more actions, I'll have more ideas." Don't make the mistake of thinking you need to wait for your thoughts to change before you try behavioral shifts. Mental and behavioral shifts go hand in hand. When you start making changes in your behavior (even subtle ones), you'll notice that all kinds of thoughts, including your view of yourself, start to shift. Changing your behavior, without waiting for you thoughts to always shift first, is one of the best and fastest ways you can reduce your anxiety. That's why a cognitive behavioral approach focuses on both thoughts and behaviors. ~ Alice Boyes

The psychologist Mark Schaller has shown that disgust is part of what he calls the "behavioral immune system" - a set of cognitive modules that are triggered by signs of infection or disease in other people and that make you want to get away from those people.40 ~ Jonathan Haidt

Man is the artificer of his own happiness. ~ Henry David Thoreau

As is true in many families where children create enormously upsetting diversions from core family secrets, Elana's family fixed on her behavior as further proof that the secret should remain buried. When behavior is truly a distraction for the unspeakable, therapist after therapist may be brought in, each attempting to intervene at the wrong level, mistakenly addressing such signals at the biological, behavioral, intrapsychic, or interpersonal level, while completely missing the unimaginable maze of secrecy in which such actions are embedded. ~ Evan Imber-Black

[There will be movement toward] behavioral economics ... [which] involves study of those aspects of men's images, or cognitive and affective structures that are more relevant to economic decisions. ~ Kenneth E. Boulding

For five years, I have been sick and I have been trying to will myself to be better. To think harder about being better, to improve more. To become a better breather, reactor, meditator, hoping that if I just try hard enough, the symptoms will go away and I'll feel like myself again, like a self I remember as if out of a rearview mirror except with this one, the objects are smaller than they appear. I have tried to force myself to be more clearheaded, energetic, grounded. Tried yoga, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and long walks in the woods. And every few months, when I finally felt I'd reached a zenith of my abilities with yoga, CBT, or talk therapy, I would give it another shot: go to another doctor, a Western doctor, one with an M.D. and a white coat, and I would tell him or her my symptoms (for the gender of the doctor does not matter only, it would seem, my gender), and hope that once again, the doctor would pay attention, would take my case, would try to help me so that I didn't have to so deeply and fervently try to help myself. ~ Eva Hagberg

Because of my bipolar disorder, I tend to these mixed states, which are depressed but loud and agitated. So I can be terribly irritable. I go to cognitive behavioral therapy in order not to yell at my children. ~ Ayelet Waldman

For example, in order to identify these schemas or clarify faulty relational expectations, therapists working from an object relations, attachment, or cognitive behavioral framework often ask themselves (and their clients) questions like these: 1. What does the client tend to want from me or others? (For example, clients who repeatedly were ignored, dismissed, or even rejected might wish to be responded to emotionally, reached out to when they have a problem, or to be taken seriously when they express a concern.) 2. What does the client usually expect from others? (Different clients might expect others to diminish or compete with them, to take advantage and try to exploit them, or to admire and idealize them as special.) 3. What is the client's experience of self in relationship to others? (For example, they might think of themselves as being unimportant or unwanted, burdensome to others, or responsible for handling everything.) 4. What are the emotional reactions that keep recurring? (In relationships, the client may repeatedly find himself feeling insecure or worried, self-conscious or ashamed, or - for those who have enjoyed better developmental experiences - perhaps confident and appreciated.) 5. As a result of these core beliefs, what are the client's interpersonal strategies for coping with his relational problems? (Common strategies include seeking approval or trying to please others, complying and going along with what others want them to do, emotionally disengaging o ~ Edward Teyber

Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists. ~ Jack Kornfield

We can see that there are many ways in which we actively contribute to our own experience of mental unrest and suffering. Although, in general, mental and emotional afflictions themselves can come naturally, often it is our own reinforcement of those negative emotions that makes them so much worse. For instance when we have anger or hatred towards a person, there is less likelihood of its developing to a very intense degree if we leave it unattended.


However, if we think about the projected injustices done to us, the ways in which we have been unfairly treated, and we keep on thinking about them over and over, then that feeds the hatred. It makes the hatred very powerful and intense. Of course, the same can apply to when we have an attachment towards a particular person; we can feed that by thinking about how beautiful he or she is, and as we keep thinking about the projected qualities that we see in the person, the attachment becomes more and more intense. But this shows how through constant familiarity and thinking, we ourselves can make our emotions more intense and powerful. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Suicide rates have not slumped under the onslaught of antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, anxiolytic and anti-psychotic drugs; the jump in suicide rates suggests that the opposite is true. In some cases, suicide risk skyrockets once treatment begins (the patient may feel not only penalized for a justifiable reaction, but permanently stigmatized as malfunctioning). Studies show that self-loathing sharply decreases only in the course of cognitive-behavioral treatment. ~ Antonella Gambotto-Burke

We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing. ~ Euripides

Believe in Your Ability to Cope with Negative Feedback

Just like everyone has a vision blind spot, everyone has cognitive blond spots that can lead to making less than stellar choices. For example, you think an outfit looks good on you, and in reality it doesn't. Or you thought you understood what your boss wanted but later realize you took the instructions in an unintended direction. Since we all have blind spots, making some mistakes and getting some negative feedback is unavoidable. Therefore, unless you plan to go live in a cave, you're going to need a game plan for how you'll cognitively and emotionally cope when negative feedback happens. We'll cover behavioral strategies later in the chapter, but let's work on the thinking and emotional aspects for now.
Experiment: Think about a specific scenario in which you fear negative feedback. If your fears came true:

--How would you go about making the required changes?
--How could you be self-accepting of your sensitivity to criticism? How could you talk to yourself gently about the emotions you're feeling instead of criticizing yourself for feeling upset? How could you be patient with yourself while you're having those feelings?
--What self-care would you do while you wait for your heart and upset feelings to pass? (Yes, rewatching episodes of '90s TV is a totally acceptable answer.)
--What personal support would you access to cope with your emotions? For example, you'd talk to a frie ~ Alice Boyes

So it was all like, Caroline continues to have behavioral problems. She struggling a lot with anger and frustration over not being able to speak (we are frustrated about these things, too, of course, but we have more socially acceptable ways of dealing with our anger). Gus has taken to calling Caroline HULK SMASH, which resonates with the doctors. There's nothing easy about this for any of us. but you take your humor where you can get it. Hoping to go home on Thursday. We'll let you know ... ~ John Green

In fact, the same intervention or response may even have the opposite effect on two different clients with contrasting developmental histories and cultural contexts. For example, if a client's parent was distant or aloof, the therapist's judicious self-disclosure may be helpful for the client. In contrast, the same type of self-disclosure is likely to be anxiety-arousing for a client who grew up serving as the confidant or emotional caregiver of a depressed parent. Greater sharing with the therapist may help the first client learn that, contrary to her deeply held beliefs, she does matter and can be of interest to other people. In contrast, for the second client, the same type of self-disclosure may inadvertently impose the unwanted needs of others and set this client back in treatment as, in her mind, she experiences herself back in her old caretaking role again - this time with the therapist. This unwanted reenactment occurs because the therapeutic relationship is now paralleling the same problematic relational theme that this client struggled with while growing up. ~ Edward Teyber

Trying to compose even a single sentence can have the same effect, as we try to juggle grammatical and syntactical alternatives plus all the possibilities of tone, nuance, and rhythm even a simple sentence offers. Composing, then, is a cognitive activity that
constantly threatens to overload short-term memory. ~ Linda Flower

Therapy isn't curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human. Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, "This is me and the world be damned!" Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society Socrates , Christ , Freud , all the way down the line. ~ Rollo May

I don't tweet or blog or order pizza with arugula on top. You won't find my mug on Facebook or Instagram. I don't have a life coach, an aroma therapist, or a manicurist, and I sure as hell don't do Pilates. ~ Paul Levine

The second illusion is historical myopia: the closer an era is to our vantage point in the present, the more details we can make out. Historical myopia can afflict both common sense and professional history. The cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman have shown that people intuitively estimate relative frequency using a shortcut called the availability heuristic: the easier it is to recall examples of an event, the more probable people think it is.10 People, for example, overestimate the likelihoods of the kinds of accidents that make headlines, such as plane crashes, shark attacks, and terrorist bombings, and they underestimate those that pile up unremarked, like electrocutions, falls, and drownings. ~ Steven Pinker

Think of it as therapy," he encouraged. "A sort of repayment for your own therapeutic knowledge. You gave me a reason to live, and I'll show you how to live. ~ Linda Howard

Facilitative attitudes (and skills) can help a therapist gain entry into the group Freedom from a desire to control the outcome, and respect for the capacity of the group, and skills in releasing individual expression Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem Acceptance of the problems experienced by the group where they are clearly defined as issues Allowance of the freedom of choices in direction, either for the group or individuals particularly in the near future ~ Carl Rogers

Imagine the kind of quantum leap that human culture would undertake if we were all suddenly given a direct link to the knowledge and experience of everyone else on the planet - if, when we made a decision, we were drawing from not just our own limited experience and expertise but from that of billions of other people. Big data has enabled this quantum leap for the cognitive development of robots. ~ Alec J. Ross

If we take two people who have exactly the same sort of lesion or area of damage in the brain and then we do cognitive tests on them, you know, one person might have a very severe deficit in a certain area of thinking and another person might not with the same exact lesion. So there is a lot of differences and you can't just look at one brain and understand the whole picture. ~ H. A. Berlin

It was Daisuke's conviction that all morality traced its origins to social realities. He believed there could be no greater confusion of cause and effect than to attempt to conform social reality to a rigidly predetermined notion of morality. Accordingly, he found the ethical education conducted by lecture in Japanese schools utterly meaningless. In the schools, students were either instructed in the old morality or crammed with a morality suited to the average European. For an unfortunate people beset by the fierce appetites of life, this amounted to nothing more than vain, empty talk. When the recipients of this education saw society before their eyes, they would recall those lectures and burst out laughing. Or else they would feel that they had been made fools of. In Daisuke's case it was not just school; he had received the most rigorous and least functional education from his father. Thanks to this, he had at one time experienced acute anguish stemming from contradictions. Daisuke even felt bitter over it. ~ Natsume Sōseki

This concept is central to understanding what distinguishes the Arrowsmith approach: cognitive exercises do not teach content or skill in, say, mathematics; the aim is to forge new neural pathways in the brain so that later, when math is taught, number concepts actually make sense. ~ Barbara Arrowsmith-Young

You'll be pleased to hear, Christopher, that I am no longer a Muslim liberal but an atheist [ ... ] I find that it obviates the necessity for any cognitive dissonance. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Friedrich Hayek .. seems to have been the first to postulate what is the core of this paper, namely, the idea of memory and perception represented in widely distributed networks of interconnected cortical cells. Subsequently this idea has received theoretical support, however tangential, from the fields of cognitive psychology, connectionism and artificial intelligence. Empirically, it is well supported by the physiological study and neuroimaging of working memory. ~ Joaquin Fuster

The first principle of cognitive therapy is that all your moods are created by your 'cognitions,' or thoughts. A cognition refers to the way you look at things - your perceptions, mental attitudes, and beliefs. It includes the way you interpret things - what you say. about something or someone to yourself. ~ David D. Burns

Two things I do for maintenance: I get a manicure once a month, and I see my therapist about every six weeks. I am happy to report that, at this point, my nails crack more often than I do. ~ Gina Barreca