Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.1
Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on changing the automatic negative thoughts that can contribute to and worsen emotional difficulties, depression, and anxiety. These spontaneous negative thoughts have a detrimental influence on mood.
Through CBT, these thoughts are identified, challenged, and replaced with more objective, realistic thoughts.
Tinnitus patients complain about the impact of this symptom on their everyday life: sleep, intellectual activity, social relationships. The anxiety and the depression are often associated with the tinnitus.
The modern medical techniques, such as positron emission tomography, allowed to show that certain zones of the brain in connection with the treatment of emotions and the memorization (hypothalamo-limbic system) are activated when the patients hear their tinnitus.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) facilitates the work on the improvement of the perception of the tinnitus and the handicap which is related to it. CBT leans on the theories of the learning, the behavior and the conditioning. These therapies, called “cognitive”, are interested in the progressive modification of the mental plans of interpretation of the reality, to eliminate the disorders, annoyance and the unsuitable behavior (example of the behavior of fold to avoid the exposure to the tinnitus.
The group work contributes to help the patient to put in perspective its perception of the tinnitus and to be inspired by initiatives of others as other many potential alternatives.