Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on 2 assumptions:

• It is not what happens but how you interpret what happens that matters
• What you do or how you act affects how you think and feel

CBT usually focuses on difficulties in the here and now rather than looking at the past. The therapy relies upon you and your therapist identifying and developing a shared understanding of the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviour so that together you can understand how or why a problem developed and how the problem has been maintained. Identifying and modifying unhelpful and inaccurate thoughts and beliefs can help us change how we think and behave which in turn can change how we feel.