Cognitive behavioural therapy is a common type of mental health counselling (psychotherapy). With cognitive behavioural therapy, you work with a mental health expert to learn how to become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking, so you can view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more positive way. It can be a helpful tool in treating people with – or indeed without – mental disorders or illnesses, and is effective in helping us learn how to better manage moods and stressful life situations. A two-pronged attack is advised when treating bi-polar involving medication and CBT or other forms of psychotherapy.
I have started to retrain my brain through meditation and yoga, which is my type of CBT. I do NOT want to engage another therapist in my search for wellbeing. This is largely owing to finances but also the time spent trawling through the same old stuff year in year out is time consuming and exhausting, to say nothing of tedious and depressing.
Without being disrespectful to the army of professionals who have helped/tried to help me, at the beginning of 2012, I knew it was time to take more personal responsibility. It became apparent to me that this mood disorder could maybe be tamed through other means such as positive thinking and visualisation. These alternative therapies will be covered in another book as I have only just started to employ them, so am not yet qualified to rate their effectiveness.