Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the umbrella term for a particular group of psychotherapies. The term “cognitive” comes from the Latin cognoscere meaning “to recognize” or “to be aware of”. CBT

• is a problem-oriented treatment.
• helps in recognizing current problems and finding solutions to them.
• aims at the client being able to cope with his or her own life again without therapeutic help, as quickly as possible.
• does not deal primarily with the past. It does not focus primarily on uncovering the deeper origins of problems.
• is based on a cooperative partnership between the therapist and the client. The therapy is shaped together.
• requires a lot of self-initiative. Successful therapy assumes that the client will continue to work on the problems between sessions.

In CBT the client deals with

• whether his or her own thoughts and convictions have a negative effect on well-being.
• whether certain types of behavior contribute to problems.

The assumption underlying CBT is that our thoughts, our behavior and our well-being mutually influence one another:

Sometimes, harmful thoughts or types of behavior make us feel bad. This is best explained with an example:

Imagine meeting someone you know on the street. You say hello, but the person does not greet you in return. There are different ways of reacting to this.