Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
The thinking behind the approach
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one of the most extensively researched and widely used approaches in mental health treatment. At its core, CBT is built on a straightforward but powerful idea: the way we think about our experiences shapes how we feel about them, and how we feel shapes what we do. That relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviors runs in both directions, and it can become a self-reinforcing loop that keeps us stuck.
CBT was developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck, who noticed that his patients with depression had a consistent pattern of automatic negative thoughts that distorted their perception of themselves, other people and the future. He found that by identifying and challenging those distortions directly, people could make meaningful and lasting changes in how they felt. That insight became the foundation of CBT, and it has since been adapted and tested across a wide range of conditions.
CBT is not about thinking positively or dismissing difficult feelings. It is about accuracy. The goal is to help you see your situation more clearly, to recognize when your thinking is being shaped by anxiety, depression or fear rather than reality, and to develop more balanced and useful ways of understanding what is happening.
Today, CBT has the strongest evidence base of any psychological treatment for anxiety, depression, panic disorder and OCD. It is recommended as a first-line treatment by major medical and psychological bodies including the American Psychological Association. It is practical, structured and focused on real change rather than indefinite exploration.
How CBT Works and Who It Can Help
What changes in CBT
CBT works on two levels simultaneously. On the cognitive side, we identify the thought patterns that are maintaining your difficulties. These might be the catastrophic what-ifs of anxiety, the all-or-nothing thinking of depression, the self-critical inner voice that never lets you rest, or the distorted beliefs about danger that fuel panic and OCD. We look at those thoughts closely, test whether they hold up against the evidence, and build more accurate and balanced alternatives.
On the behavioral side, we address the things you are doing, or not doing, that keep the problem in place. Avoidance, withdrawal, compulsions, reassurance-seeking: these behaviors make sense as short-term responses to distress, but they prevent the brain from learning that it can tolerate and move through difficult situations. By changing behavior in targeted and structured ways, we give the brain new information, and over time that changes how it responds.
The conditions CBT can help with
-
Anxiety & perfectionism
including the relentless self-monitoring that comes with high standards
-
Depression & low mood
including the withdrawal and negative thinking that keeps it in place
-
Panic disorder
including the fear of physical sensations and the avoidance that builds around them
-
OCD
in combination with specialized approaches such as i-CBT and ERP
My Background with CBT
I am Hafina Allen, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Board-Certified Telemental Health Provider with more than 20 years of experience. CBT has been the foundation of my practice throughout my career, beginning with my early work at the Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai Hospital, where I helped incorporate CBT skills into group treatment for survivors of traumatic brain injuries. Seeing what structured, skills-based work could do for people navigating profoundly difficult circumstances is what convinced me that this approach was worth specializing in.
I also came to CBT through personal experience. Earlier in my life I struggled with anxiety and panic disorder, and CBT is what helped me. That experience shapes how I use it with clients. I know what it is like to have a thought feel completely true even when it is not. I know what it is like to learn, slowly and through practice, to see your own thinking more clearly. I bring that understanding into the room.
My approach is collaborative by design. I believe my clients are the experts on their own lives. My job is to provide the tools and the structure, and together we figure out how to put them to work in the context of your specific situation. I work entirely via telehealth with adults across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, North Dakota and New Hampshire.
Thinking Is Not the Enemy. Unhelpful Thinking Is.
CBT can help you tell the difference, and build a different relationship with your own mind. I offer a free 15-minute consultation, no pressure, no commitment, just a conversation about what you are dealing with and whether working together feels like the right fit.
CBT Treatment
Brooklyn, NY
Telehealth · NY · NJ · FL · CT · IL · ND · NH
Brooklyn, NY
26 Court Street, Suite 1001, Brooklyn, NY 11242