Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy is a therapeutic approach that helps people increase awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The intention is to help them identify the factors which may have been causing distress in order to make changes for the future. This therapy can be used for a number of different life challenges such as stress, anxiety, and depression.
The therapist will work collaboratively with the individual to explore these issues and how they might be related to past experiences or other aspects of their lives. It’s important that we know what has helped us cope before so we can build on those strengths when we need them most. By working together, you will better understand your current situation and create new ways forward for coping with it more effectively than before – this is crucial for a healthy mental state.
Is Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy scientifically proven?
There is some evidence that awareness-based cognitive therapy may be helpful for people with anxiety disorders. However, more research is needed to determine whether it is an effective treatment.
What Is Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy (ABCT)
Awareness-Based Cognitive Therapy (ABCT) is a new form of “Non-Binary” counseling and therapy – meaning it is derived from insights based on Indian yogic philosophy and practice.
To realize what happens in ourselves and around us as they happen when we are consciously aware is to perceive the thoughts, feelings, feelings in our body as they are and stay with them for the moment without labeling or judging what has happened, but not to be absent or distracted.
Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy is a Mindfulness Therapy developed by Segal Williams to prevent more depressive relapses. It teaches clients to observe their thoughts and is an application of MBSR (Mindfulness-based stress reduction) used for cognitive therapy and depression. Its purpose is to raise awareness through awareness education.
Mindfulness-based practices use many different Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) methods because awareness practices and cognitive-behavioral therapies have a similar perspective on directing thoughts and perceptions to emotions and behaviors. Both approaches argue that individuals’ dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors can be replaced by functional ones and work to achieve results by changing their thinking patterns.
Basic Attitudes in Conscious Awareness
Don’t judge!
- We have many generalized judgments about our lives.
- We have a label and a classification for almost everything we see: “good” “bad”, “neutral”
- All these judgments cause our minds to be too busy to love or to be loved.
- We avoid things we don’t like and ignore them and we turn to things we love, whereas anything positive, negative or neutral in life is temporary.
- An effective way to control stress in our lives; The first thing we need to do is to be aware of these automatic judgments.
Be Patient!
- Patience is accepting and understanding that everything has time.
- We should not prefer some times to better times.
- Patience is being open to every moment, accepting it as it is, and knowing that everything has a time.
Simple Mind
- The wealth of the present is also the wealth of life itself.
- Willingness to see everything as if it were the first time
- Because it is never the same as another. Every moment is unique.
Confidence
- Developing a basic sense of confidence in yourself and your feelings is an important feature of meditation training.
- Sometimes people imitate someone that they are not, thinking that they are more advanced and wiser than they actually are, and they do it without questioning themselves.
- It is not possible to be someone other than yourself, your only hope should be to be completely yourself.
Don’t be too ambitious!
- We do almost everything we do for the sake of a purpose, to get something or come somewhere.
- Meditation is different from all the activities people do.
- It takes a lot of work and energy, meditation is not doing anything.
- Saying “I will relax, become enlightened, control my pain or become a better person” while meditating brings a thought into your mind about how you should be.
- If you are nervous then just pay attention to the tension.
- If you criticize yourself, observe the busyness of the judging mind.
- Just watch.
- In this way, we simply accept everything we are experiencing right now.
Acceptance
- Conscious awareness is the acceptance and awareness of the existing experiences.
- Even if our feelings are good, uncomfortable, they should be welcomed, accepted, and treated equally. All emotions are ours.
- To approach our anxiety, sadness, hatred, and passion with kindness and respect. Do not to resist them.
- By understanding its nature, we must be in solidarity with these feelings.
Let it go!
- When we pay attention to our inner lives, we discover that there are certain thoughts, emotions, and situations that the mind wants to hold on to.
- Similarly, there are many thoughts, feelings and situations that we try to get rid of, prevent or protect ourselves.
- In meditation practices, we put aside our tendency not to accept others while glorifying some of our lives. Instead, we live it as it is and practice it to observe it for the moment.
- When we have thoughts about the past and the future, we release them and just watch.
- While the concept of conscious awareness is conceptualized as a state experience experienced during conscious awareness exercises, it is also considered as a skill that can be developed or even a trait that is acquired without being aware of it.
Last Updated on December 12, 2022 by Lucas Berg
