How I Work
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is the backbone of most of my work. It is practical and concrete, and it gives you tools you can test in your real life between sessions, not just talk about in the room.
What CBT Is
Cognitive behavioral therapy rests on a simple idea: thoughts, feelings and actions are connected, and changing one can shift the others. When you are depressed or anxious, certain thoughts repeat so often they start to sound like facts. “I always mess things up.” “Something bad is going to happen.” “Everyone else can handle this.”
CBT treats those thoughts as ideas to examine rather than truths to obey. We look at the evidence for and against them, notice the patterns they create in what you do, and try new responses. It is collaborative and structured, and it focuses on what is keeping a problem going right now.
How I Use CBT
CBT is the spine of my depression work. Depression runs on a small number of thoughts repeated until they sound true, so we catch them, write them down and test them against what actually happened this week.
With anxiety, we map the loop: the trigger, the scary thought, the escape that brings relief, and the way that relief teaches your brain the fear was right. With ADHD, CBT goes after the story underneath the missed deadline, that you are lazy or unreliable, and then helps build structure around how your attention really works. In trauma work, I use CBT-informed methods at your pace, once stability is in place.
What a CBT Session Can Look Like
Sessions are fifty minutes by secure video. Early on, we turn what you want into goals in your own words. A typical session might start with how the week went, then zoom in on one hard moment: what happened, what you told yourself, what you felt and what you did. From there we might work on:
- Catching a thought and asking what the evidence actually says.
- Noticing a pattern, like avoiding the thing that scares you.
- Planning one small experiment to try before next time.
- Reviewing what happened, without judgment, and adjusting.
A thought that repeats is not the same as a thought that is true. CBT is how we tell the difference.
Practice Between Sessions, Without the Busywork
CBT is meant to leave the room with you. That does not mean worksheets for their own sake. Between-session practice is optional and never busywork: a short note when a familiar thought shows up, one conversation you have been avoiding, a five-minute walk on a heavy morning. We size it to the week you actually have.
Progress gets reviewed out loud, so we both know whether the work is helping. If a strategy is not earning its keep, I will say so and we will change it.
CBT Alongside Other Approaches
I combine CBT with a client-centered stance, so you decide what we focus on, and a solution-focused lens on what you want more of. Mindfulness-based skills help with the body side of anxiety and stress. If you want your faith included, CBT can sit alongside prayer or scripture; if not, it stays fully clinical.
If racing thoughts keep you awake, my guide on how to stop overthinking at night shows a few CBT tools you can try right away.
Common Questions
- Is CBT just positive thinking?
- No. CBT is not about forcing cheerful thoughts. It is about accurate thinking: looking honestly at the evidence, including the hard parts. I do believe a positive mindset can change your perspective on any situation, but in CBT we build it from evidence, not slogans.
- Does CBT work for teens?
- CBT can suit teenagers well because it is concrete and practical. With teens, I keep it plain and tied to real school days, friendships and stress. See therapy for teens in Texas for more on how that work looks.
- Will I have homework?
- Between-session practice is optional and never busywork. Some weeks it might be noticing a thought when it shows up; other weeks there may be nothing at all. You decide what is realistic.
- How long does CBT take?
- It depends on what you are working on and what you want. We set goals together and revisit them out loud, so you are never guessing whether to continue. Ending well is part of the plan from the beginning.
Try a Practical Approach
Book a free consultation and tell me which thoughts keep looping. We will talk about whether CBT is a good fit for what you are carrying.