CBT (Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy) is the therapeutic tradition where it is generally accepted that people’s problems are largely determined by the way they think about the adversities that they face in life and how they act in the face of these adversities. The remedy lies in replacing faulty thinking with functional thinking, and taking action that strengthens rather than weakens this new thinking.

REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) is the original form of CBT that was founded in 1955 by an American Psychologist, Albert Ellis (1913-2007). Of the two main schools of CBT, REBT is the one that remains closest to its philosophical roots of Stoicism and Existentialism. It is transdiagnostic (meaning that one method is learned and used to treat a full range of emotional and behavioural issues, including meta disturbances), and it goes to core belief level from the outset, thereby enabling clients to get better for the long term, rather than just feel better in the short term.

CBT/REBT sessions are structured, active and collaborative, focus on the here-and-now, are problem focused and goal oriented, involve inter-session homework, and aim to teach clients to become their own therapist. A course of CBT/REBT therapy will typically consist of 8-24 sessions.

CBT/REBT is interested in looking at problems as they manifest in the client’s present-day life and ongoing into the future. It is not so concerned with how or from where unhealthy beliefs or behavioural coping strategies originated. That said, where we assess that emotion memories setup through early life trauma are holding up unhealthy beliefs in the present, I am trained in other “wave 3” CBT and trauma protocols that work with long past material that is impacting the present.

CBT consists of rigorously evaluated theories using evidence collected from scientific  research studies. Hence it is the therapy of choice of state health services and insurance companies, where evidence based treatments are a de-facto standard.

Codependency is a relational disorder in which a person struggles to maintain an authentic sense of self whilst being interconnected to others. A key feature of codependency is the abandonment of self by adapting the self to fit in with others. It’s origin is typically when one or both parents engaged in any of many compulsive behaviours, was involved in an abusive or dysfunctional relationship including in their own upbringing,  or suffered from serious emotional issues themselves as they parented.

The pattern of living and relating that the growing child learned in order to survive in a family in which there was such emotional pain and stress, comprises “developmental trauma”. This often leads to a variety of problematic relational styles, thinking and behaviour when that child becomes an adult. The child may grow up to engage in compulsive behaviours or addictions, or to be attracted to others who do so. Common compulsive behaviours include the excessive use of alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, food, sex, love, work, exercise, gambling, spending, debting, saving, hoarding, perfectionism, antisocial behaviour, raging and criminality.

The good news is that recovery from developmental trauma and codependency is possible. Some recovery methods are 12-Step self-help programs, Pia Mellody’s PIT model, Schema Therapy and EMDR. In Mellody’s model clients re-examine their childhood relationships, and identify and heal childhood and adolescent wounds in a safe and nurturing environment utilising inner child imagery, re-scripting and adaptive re-parenting.

Schema Therapy, devised by Jeffrey Young, consists of a similar but much more detailed and formalised approach, aimed particularly at working with Personality Disorders and other serious disturbances. Schema Therapy draws from CBT, Attachment Theory, Psychodynamic concepts, and Emotion-focused therapies. It places emphasis on overcoming self-defeating life patterns and deep rooted emotional problems.

EMDR is a body based therapy originally developed for treating people diagnosed with PTSD, by Francine Shapiro. It is now recognised as very useful for treating a wide range of deeply embedded psychological issues. It uses “bilateral stimulation” in the form of eye movements &/or taps or audio stimuli to reprocess emotion memories that are stored in a fragmented way in the brain’s limbic system, into whole and integrated narrative memories that are stored in the brain’s neocortex area. When information has been reprocessed in this way it is no longer susceptible to traumatic recall via present day triggers. Hence one is more able to drop dysfunctional thinking and behaviours that have served to avoid such triggers occurring.

I am part way through official training and accreditation in Schema Therapy and EMDR.