Cognitive Therapy Basics

When it comes to your overall mental health, stress is the biggest problem that most of face. It is also the biggest reason for many health problems that we face daily. Most of don’t even understand that stress can be the major cause of major health problems like heart problems. There are many different types of therapy that can be used to help with stress relief and music therapy is a relaxing and soothing one that can help with stress but also major and minor illnesses as well.

Music therapy services are available to adults and children with disabilities. Sessions are individually designed according to each person’s special needs. Using music and music activities, the music therapist works with each individual to address specific goals and objectives that are determined by the therapist.

With music therapy both individual and small group sessions will be conducted with regular progress evaluations. Music therapy can be done for clients with the following disabilities: Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Mental Retardation, Attention Deficit Disorder, Lowe’s Syndrome, and, Tourrette’s Syndrome.

Music Therapy may be commonly defined as the structured use of music and music activities geared toward helping individuals with disabilities meet both musical and non-musical goals. Music therapy goals may be based on behavioral, physical, cognitive, social, and emotional or language and communication. Music is a proven relaxation technique as well as a stimulant. Those who use music therapy often experience positive changes.

Music therapy is good for people of all ages may benefit from music therapy, from young children to elderly seniors. People with almost any disability have ability when it comes to music. Music Therapy clients participate through playing instruments, improvising and making up new songs, singing, or even just listening. The people that are involved in Music Therapy sessions may range from having a mild learning disability to having severe mental retardation.

Music therapists assess clients’ communication skills, social functioning, physical health and mobility, cognitive skills, and emotional well-being by how they respond to music. They design Music Therapy sessions for individuals according to their unique needs. In these tailored sessions, therapists use techniques such as music improvisation, receptive music listening, music performance on instruments and with the voice, and learning through music. That is just too cool. When you think of music in terms of therapy, it is very easy to forget how truly useful music can be. It really does sooth the savage beast within us if we let it.

Stress can affect every aspect of life in general. That is why it is essential that people learn a bit of stress management since the experience can sometimes be inevitable. A little bit of stress now and then can sometimes be helpful in that it keeps a person be conditioned to react when certain unexpected circumstances happen. But this is the type of stress that one can easily cope up with. On the other hand, experiencing too much stress can have adverse effects on the body.
There are many ways that people do to try and cope up with stress. One of the most common but certainly not the quickest means is by changing a person’s mindset. It has been known that how a person thinks greatly affects his behavior and actions. If a person always thinks negatively, behavior seems likely to follow the same way. And when a person’ s way of thinking and behavior is based on negativity, it is more likely that stress becomes an ever present companion in every aspect of life. In order to stop stress from becoming a damaging factor in one’s life, then one has to get rid of all the negativity in terms of behavior and thinking.
One way of trying to get rid of the negativity in one’s mindset is by trying to identify There is a form of stress therapy called cognitive restructuring which deals with identifying and changing a person’s faulty thinking and unrealistic beliefs. Cognitive distortions is another term used to refer to these faulty thinking and beliefs. By correcting these distortions, only then can one be able to change one’s way of thinking.
People make use of different cognitive distortions which can be associated with stress. These are faulty thinking and beliefs that lead people to behave or act in a negative way. And there are several cognitive distortions that are common problems in many people. One of them is overgeneralization.
Overgeneralization is a common cognitive distortion among many people. Some may not be aware of it, but a lot of people are always guilty of overgeneralizing. It can be considered as a normal reaction by some. But too much of it can lead one to stress.
It is normal for people to base judgments on past experiences. When a person has experienced a negative event, it then becomes a factor that one naturally tries to relate other succeeding negative events of the same kind. This is why most people tend to develop stereotypes. But then overgeneralizing tends to make people believe that when experiencing a certain situation, all the other similar situations in the future would result in the exact same way.
People overgeneralize by thinking that there would be no difference in terms of results to similar situations that happen in the past to ones that happen in the present or in the future. When one has an experience with a rude salesperson, an overgeneralizer would judge that all salespersons are also rude.
Another common distortion in most people that is corrected in stress management is the trait of always jumping into conclusions. There are many people who, when faced with a certain situation tend to jump into making conclusions of why certain events happen. This is usually made before any evidence has been taken to back up the conclusion. For every negative situation, people with this cognitive distortion often try to go straight into concluding in the negative.
This can become so bad that people easily accepts the conclusion, even to the point of ignoring signs and evidences that prove the contrary.

Panic attacks are usually an uncontrollable condition in which a person feels panic in response to what should be a normal or non-threatening situation. Menopausal panic attacks are a shock to women that have never experienced anxiety. Panic attacks appear to strike younger postmenopausal women more than older women. The symptoms usually begin during perimenopause, which can begin as early as 35 years of age. Perimenopause is thought to begin at the time of hormonal symptoms to the end of the menstrual cycle or menses. It is however, very interesting to note that menopausal panic attacks is very much a western phenomenon.

Women who suffer from this kind of feeling have one thing in common – they do not breathe properly. Menopause are associated with anxiety symptoms that include feeling sudden intense fear, nervousness, sweating, and shortness of breath, palpitations, and dizziness. Many women from non-western countries including Hong Kong, Japan, and Pakistan only have a 10% incidence of panic attacks during this change of life period, compared with 85% in the west. Hormone imbalances that occur during perimenopause and menopause could be the cause of panic attacks. These imbalances do create an environment.

Panic attacks start without warning and last for minutes or hours. An afflicted person must cope with the possibility of an attack occurring while shopping, driving, attending church, or being with other people socially. There has been no agreement among professionals about what causes them.Panic attacks strike suddenly and like the waves at the beach, come in ebbs and flows. The intense physical sensations that accompany them may make you think that you may be suffering a heart attack. There are ways to avoid this unfortunate and unnecessary experience. As a women going through menopause.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy can be very beneficial whether treating stress, anxiety, or menopausal panic attack. The main purpose of hypnosis with regards to anxiety is to provide the individual’s unconscious or subconscious mind with suggestions on how to relax. Relaxation and imagery techniques are also commonly taught to help those who suffer from Panic Disorder to alleviate symptoms of panic attacks while they are experiencing them. Cognitive-behavioral therapy also helpful Panic attacks condition Natural anxiety treatments that have been used safely and effectively for centuries to treat the symptoms of anxiety attacks and panic attacks.

Unfortunately, many of us feel as if we are on the verge of burnout. We feel as if we have to worry about our children, our jobs, and our relationships.At times, we may feel as if we are spinning out of control.
It is as if we are engaging in a high wire act without a net. We become frustrated and angry with ourselves because we don’t think we’re achieving our potential. We can literally become lost in a sea of worry.
At one time, seeking therapy for such feelings of anxiety would have been considered socially unacceptable. A few decades ago, many people considered therapy to be an indulgence.
Mental health counseling had an incredible stigma attached to it. However, today we see celebrities including Brooke Shields, Anne Heche, Marie Osmond, and Jane Pauley who speak openly about seeking counseling for their problems.Cognitive Behavior Therapy is no longer considered the domain of the crazy and the weak.
Therapy can come in a variety of forms. It can involve face-to-face counseling, self-help books, CDs, and online forums. It has been said that there are as many as 100 therapy programs on the market today.
These programs share some common traits. First, they assess how the individual is thinking and identify any disruptions in thought patterns. It is important to get these thoughts out into the open in order to deal with them effectively.
Second, the programs attempt to figure out an individual’s basic beliefs and whether these beliefs are founded on reliable principles. Say, for instance, you become anxious about flying.
Through talk therapy, it is determined that this fear can be traced back to your concerns about your grandmother, who once had an unpleasant flying experience en route to Oklahoma.You might have been worried about your grandmother’s safety and that, in turn, has led to an irrational fear of flying.
The next step is to gather evidence in order to combat negative thinking. For instance, you might look for a statistic indicating how many crashes a given airline has during a year.
When you discover how infrequently accidents occur, your belief that flying is dangerous may be thrown out the window. The one sure-fire way to fight negative thinking is to counteract it with reliable facts.
Another technique you can use to combat anxiety is to develop coping mechanisms. In other words, in order to not let your worry get the best of you, you might try prayer and meditation, exercise, dancing, reading a good book, or soaking in a hot tub.
You should keep a list of relaxation techniques handy so that you can turn to them any time you are feeling particularly stressed out.You will have to get into the habit of relaxation. This can be quite difficult, especially for those with high-stress jobs. You may even consider taking a class in relaxation techniques. Once you utilize these techniques, you are likely to find yourself better able to concentrate better able to manage your feelings and better able to cope.
Literally millions of people have been assisted through cognitive behavioral therapy. While herbal remedies and prescription medications can alleviate symptoms, they do not address the root causes of anxiety. Until we begin to think positively, we cannot hope to attack the crux of our anxious feelings.
How do you find the therapist that’s right for you? To begin with, consult some of your trusted friends. Chances are someone in their families has been to a counselor within the past six months.
You’ll want someone who is easy to talk to, with whom you can share your innermost thoughts and feelings. If you try a therapist and you feel uncomfortable, by all means switch to someone else.Sometimes, finding the right counselor is a matter of trial and error.
Going through therapy can be a tough experience. You may have to delve into areas that you find to be uncomfortable. But it can be highly rewarding in the end.
You may find that you gain greater insight into your thought patterns, that you are better able to communicate effectively, and that you are feeling much less anxious. There is no reason to apologize for undergoing therapy. Seeking help is actually a sign of strength.

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Emotional stress is someth ing that we all experience when we have to cope with the many demands and responsibilities of home and work. Stress can be defined as an intense emotional and physiological reaction to a situation or the mental representation of a situation as a memory or anticipation. Chronic stress is produced when stress reactions do not resolve themselves and become habitual. The sustained physiological effects of chronic stress can have a serious effect on the body and lead to an increased risk of disease. The psychological effects of chronic stress produce fatigue, poor concentration and an impaired ability to perform tasks, which leads to more stress. Stress produces a general feeling of helplessness and negativity, both of which reinforce the stress reactions. This produces a lack of vitality, enthusiasm and creativity and many people describe chronic stress as a heavy blackness that covers everything and in its severe form, chronic stress leads to depression. Chronic stress can result in an increased chance of accidents as well as reducing work performance. Chronic stress also reduces our listening and learning skills and this reduces the quality of communication in our personal relationships and family.

It is well recognized that stress reactions are learned and originate from the influence of our own mental outlook and from belief patterns acquired from our parents, family and culture. Stress always contains both an objective component and a subjective component and in most situations, it is the habitual subjective emotional reactivity that generates the emotional tension and physiological characteristics of stress. There is pain and there is suffering. Pain is the objective component that is often inevitable or unavoidable, but suffering is a subjective reaction that we generate and add to the pain. The Buddha described this subjective suffering as dukkha and not surprisingly, mindfulness, which is one of the central teachings of the Buddha, was and continues to be very relevant for working with and resolving emotional stress.

The other major source of stress comes from unresolved traumas that result from physical injury, assault, domestic abuse and violence. In general this kind of trauma-related stress results from experiences and associated emotional reactions that we cannot process, because they are outside of our normal range of experience. These unresolved wounds become repressed and submerge into the subconscious mind where they continue to simmer and generate a generalized anxiety. This is described as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Occasionally, in severe cases of PTSD resulting from war or other intense situations, the stress reactions will erupt as nightmares and flashbacks in which the individual re-lives the trauma.

Whatever the source of the stress reactions, it is important to understand that each reaction has an internal structure in the form of negative thoughts and beliefs and associated emotional energy that gives power to these thoughts. It is often very helpful to examine these negative thoughts and try to change them. This is the approach taken in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Another approach is to change the emotional energy that empowers the thoughts and beliefs, because without this compulsive charge, the beliefs will have no power to generate stress. This is the approach taken in MMT. Through careful attention and investigation of the emotion through mindfulness, we can uncover the internal structure of the emotion and discover what needs to change. As the structure changes, so does the emotion. Resolve this and you will neutralize the stress reactions.

OVERCOMING STRESS REACTIONS: THE FOUR Rs

Stress is generated by habitual emotional reactions to external events and internal beliefs. These patterns of negative thinking can be changed by the application of the four Rs, which are the primary focus of MMT. These are: RECOGNITION, REFRAMING, RELATIONSHIP, RESOLUTION.

RECOGNITION

All habitual emotional reactions rely on two key elements: ignorance and emotional energy. The first task in MMT is to learn to recognize our stress reactions as they arise in stressful situations. We train ourselves to watch very carefully for any impulse to react. This counteracts the automatic and mechanical part of what makes reactions habitual. The maxim of MMT is that all change begins with mindfulness and mindful-recognition is the first and most important step. You know what pushes your buttons. It might be in your personal relationships with your partner or with your children or perhaps with your parents. One of the most important steps you can take on the path of self-transformation is to take the initiative to examine what stressors cause you to react and to learn to recognize your impulse to react. This is very empowering and changes your attitude from being a victim to being a warrior. For most of the time, most of us react out of habit and have no awareness of what is happening while it is happening. We are simply seduced into the same automatic patterns of reactive thinking over and over again. Clearly, the first step is to break this pattern of ignorance and know what is happening as it happens. This is the fundamental first part of mindfulness. Mindfulness means to be present for experience as it is unfolding.

REFRAMING

Now you are learning to recognize anger reactions, disappointment and frustration reactions, fear and anxiety reactions as they arise in real-time. This new awareness can be very transformational by itself by simply making you conscious of what you are doing. It is a truth that what you don’t see is what has the greatest power over you. Awakening to what is happening is therefore the first step to change.

The next step that paves the way for transformi ng the emotional energy that powers stress reactivity is to change your relationship to the emotion. Our usual response is to say I am angry or I am afraid or I am upset and we literally become the emotion. Contrast this to saying I notice anger/fear/upset in me. Now the emotion becomes reduced to an object, not me, that I can relate to with mindfulness. This simple reframing of how we perceive an emotional reaction – as me or as an object that has arisen in me is itself transformational.

RELATIONSHIP

However, what keeps a reaction alive is the associated emotional charge, without which the reaction would have no power to cause stress. MMT teaches us how to form a non-reactive relationship, the Mindfulness Based Relationship, with this underlying emotional energy that compels us to react. This is the RELATIONSHIP phase of MMT.

The mindfulness relationship is very important. This is where we allow ourselves to open our awareness and investigate the emotional energy, which is quite different to our usual reactions of ignorance, avoidance or aversion. We choose to be fully present with the inner feelings behind the stress reactions, rather than getting sucked into the content and story line. Just as in personal relationships, it is the quality of our PRESENCE, our ability to listen with an open mind and heart that is most important. Now we are learning to cultivate this same presence for our inner emotional stress. The nature of the mind is such that if you allow things to change, they inevitably will. If you allow things to change and unfold into this safe spaciousness of the mindfulness-based relationship, things will change in a beneficial direction that will transform and resolve the inner conflict and pain. It is the habitual reactivity that stops this natural healing and as we learn to disengage from the patterns of reactivity we create the right conditions in which emotional tension will resolve itself.

RESOLUTION

Mindfulness creates a therapeutic space that allows the emotion to unfold and undergo transformation. If you give it space it will change. This is one of the great discoveries made by the Buddha, 2500 years ago and which we are rediscovering today. It is not what we do that matters as much as how we relate to our emotional stress. When this relationship is based on the receptivity and openness of mindfulness, then we create the best possible conditions in which emotional tension can resolve itself.

Resolution can be understood as the process in which a stress producing emotion like anger or anxiety or disappointment undergoes a process of unfolding and differentiation. When we investigate anger with mindfulness, we begin to see that the anger is actually an assembly of more subtle content – the inner structure – in the form of feelings, memories, sensations and often some form of inner imagery that pulls all these parts together into the form of an emotion. The anger differentiates into feelings of sadness, emptiness, fear. With intense stress reactions resulting from trauma, we will likely notice vivid inner imagery. It is by uncovering the internal structure of the emotions and associated imagery that change becomes possible and mindfulness provides one of the best ways of cultivating a safe relationship with painful content by teaching you how to stay present and avoid becoming reactive to what you are uncovering.

Through becoming conscious of the inner structure of the emotions that power our stress reactions, the emotional energy will change and resolve. Without this emotional power, there is nothing to sustain the emotional reactions and life-long patterns of stress producing reactivity begin to dissolve, leaving you free from their compulsive grip. Like the petals of a lotus bud that were previously held and constrained so tightly, the mind begins to explore a new freedom with all its possibilities and choices. This is the freedom that the Buddha talked about and that is possible for all of us to discover through the practice of mindfulness. MMT teaches you how to apply mindfulness to resolve your patterns of habitual reactivity so that you can realize your full potential and enjoy your life and relationships to the full.

Peter Strong, PhD is a scientist and Buddhist psychotherapist who specializes in the study of mindfulness and its application in Mindfulness Meditation Therapy. Peter teaches mindfulness meditation (vipassana) and works with individuals and couples using Mindfulness Meditation Therapy for resolving difficult emotional problems including anxiety, depression, phobias, grief and trauma and the management of anger and stress. Besides face-to-face work, Peter also works with individuals and couples online via email and web conferencing. To learn more visit http://www.mindfulnessmeditationtherapy.com/

Email enquiries welcome.