Drumcondra and Glasnevin Counselling Services

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is brief and time-limited. During the sessions you will learn how to become your own therapist. You will be given the tools to help you become your own person. To take charge of your life. To understand why you, and only you, have brought yourself to this place at this point in time. To accept that everyone is responsible for their own behaviour. To challenge your thoughts and beliefs and see how they shape your views and ultimately your experiences of the world as you perceive it to be. To quote Epictetus, "Men are not moved by things, but by the views which they take of them."

In CBT I like to switch the phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it” to “I’ll see it when I believe it”.  This shift in perception raises our awareness. It is only when we have elevated a problem into our awareness and begin to see it in a different light that we can do something about it. We begin to realise and accept that we have choices. We can do something about the problem or do nothing. The choice is ours to take. The decision is ours to make.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy has proven worldwide to be effective in the treatment of many psychological disorders.

When we become anxious, depressed or living in fear, the rational part of our brain is suppressed and the emotional brain takes over. We become time travellers trapped in the past.   Time-travellers living in the past in a ruminating room. Worrying, restless and agitated, driving ourselves to dispair with guilt, shame, secrets and unresolved business.  Glimpses of the future can become images of catastrophe, hopelessness and emptiness. 

When I think of the ‘Ruminating Room’ I put bars and chains on its door and visualize an adjoining room I call the ‘Reflection Room’. It is a safe place. A sanctuary. My private internal space where I can explore that which is bothering me. Here in this place I ask not who is, or was, to blame for my emotional distress. No, I ask only, what can I learn from these experiences. I become aware that I cannot change the past. Nor should I forget the past. I remind myself that – when I live in the past I forfeit the present –when I forget the past I risk similar fate in the future. So, I look to the future and ask ‘Where do I want to be in six months time?  . Now I bring myself into the present and ask myself ‘what do I have to do, here and now, to achieve my goal. To be myself. This is time-travel of the best kind. This is a spiritual journey with invited passengers only. This is Mindfulness.