what are your thoughts on CBT, Mindfulness and MBCT?

[jaspecialk]

Hi guys, I've had bad anxiety for the last few years centred around blushing. It's gotten better, largely due to mindfulness, which I've been practising for a year, on and off. I've done it every day for the last 16 days ( a record streak for me) using the Headspace app, and had great results thus far. I've also just started seeing a therapist, to further help me who has suggested CBT. The idea of CBT makes me a little uncomfortable because it seems at odds with mindfulness. Roughly speaking, mindfulness=acceptance or non-judgemental acknowledgement whereas CBT would seek to actively change a negative thought. I may be wrong in this however, feel free to correct me.

Anyway, what are your thoughts and experiences with this topic? What about MBCT which seems to be some sort of combination?
The book "Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world" claims to be based on MBCT, is it worth picking up? I already have Mindfulness for Dummies, which is quite good, (but nothing has been as effective as Headspace) so I'm considering picking up MBCT for Dummies as well.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm interested to hear what any of you have to say at all on the topic. Cheers!

[Enduronman]

I don't know anything about CBT but there may be others here that do.
Welcome to the forums!

E-Man :)

[Xerosnake90]

CBT is an excellent tool in healing of mental health regarding anxiety. Thought patterns and degeneration of said patterns turns into the worry, doubt, and ultimately fear we experience as anxiety. CBT is to retrain those patterns. You can use cbt in many aspects. Don't talk to strangers much? Make it a habit to look new people in the eye and greet them. Do this long enough and you condition yourself to make it a habit. This making yourself appear much friendlier to new people. In regards to anxiety you flip those negative worry thoughts around to more constructive ways of thinking. Eliminating the fear and doubt aspect.

I'm a big fan of it. It's transformed my way of thinking before and it pulled me out of a slump of misery. And staying away from negative thoughts keeps me out of that misery. Practice it, live it. Take care.

[jessed03]

They're all very useful methods to help reduce anxiety.

Google Cognitive Thinking Errors now. See how many you're guilty of. It's an enlightening exercise.

[Xerosnake90]

Excellent idea jessed. I'm guilty of some of them. I'm aware on a certain level and try to approach those thoughts more positively.

[jessed03]

Excellent idea jessed. I'm guilty of some of them. I'm aware on a certain level and try to approach those thoughts more positively.

Probably time I had another read through myself, actually. I always find I'm secretly fitting in a few small mental thinking errors whenever I check back.