The Cognitive Triangle and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Part 2: Creating Change

In the first part of this blog series, we explored how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected and how patterns like negative thinking and schemas can shape our experiences. But awareness alone isn’t enough to create lasting change. In this second blog we’ll survey the practical tools that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) provides to help people actively shift these patterns.

Changing Thoughts: Becoming Aware and Restructuring

One of the primary goals of CBT is to help individuals recognize and modify unhelpful thinking patterns. This begins with increasing awareness. Many people experience negative thoughts so quickly and so often that they don’t even notice them. These are sometimes called automatic thoughts, and they can strongly influence emotions and behavior without conscious awareness.

To encourage conscious awareness, CBT suggests:

• Self-monitoring
• Tracking thoughts in specific situations
• Noticing patterns in thinking
• Identifying links between thoughts, emotions, and actions

Once people become more aware of their thinking, the next step is evaluating those thoughts.

Cognitive Restructuring

In CBT, evaluating and replacing negative thinking is called cognitive restructuring. At first, this process can feel difficult and unnatural. However, with practice, many people find that more balanced thinking becomes part of their everyday mindset. Achieving this involves examining whether thoughts are accurate or helpful, considering alternative interpretations of situations, and then replacing overly negative or rigid thoughts with more balanced ones. For example, a victim of physical assault might decide to describe themselves as a survivor rather than a victim.

Changing Behavior to Influence Thoughts

CBT also emphasizes that change doesn’t have to start with thinking. Behavior can be just as powerful. People are encouraged to think like scientists, treating their beliefs as ideas to test rather than facts to accept automatically. This approach involves gathering real-world evidence by:

• Testing beliefs through action
• Trying new behaviors to see what actually happens
• Observing whether feared outcomes occur
• Learning from direct experience

This process can lead to meaningful shifts in thinking because it provides concrete evidence that challenges old assumptions.

Addressing Avoidance and Building Confidence

Unhelpful behaviors, especially avoidance, often play a major role in maintaining distress. Avoidance may reduce discomfort in the short term, but it prevents people from learning that they can cope. CBT addresses this through structured behavioral exercises, such as:

• Exposure
• Gradually facing feared situations
• Allowing anxiety to decrease naturally over time
• Learning that feared consequences are unlikely or manageable
• Exposure with response prevention
• Facing triggers without engaging in habitual coping behaviors
• Breaking cycles that reinforce anxiety or distress
• Developing healthier ways of responding

Through these experiences, individuals often discover that they are more capable than they initially believed.

Relapse Prevention: Preparing for the Future

An important part of CBT is planning for life after therapy. Rather than expecting life to be free of challenges, CBT helps people prepare for future difficulties. One way CBT helps clients do this is by normalizing setbacks. Difficult moments are expected, even after achieving progress. A single setback does not mean failure! CBT also assists people to prepare for future difficulties by encouraging them to apply the cognitive and behavioral techniques they learned in counseling sessions to their daily life. By using learned skills independently, clients begin relying less on the counselor over time. This focus on independence helps explain why many people continue to benefit from CBT even after therapy has ended.

CBT Is Effective and Accessible

CBT has several features that make it widely used and effective:

• It is structured and goal-oriented, focusing on specific problems
• It emphasizes the present moment, rather than only exploring the past
• It is often time-limited, with many concerns addressed in a relatively short number of sessions
• It can be adapted for individuals, groups, and diverse populations

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy offers a clear and practical way to understand and improve mental health. By recognizing the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, individuals can begin to break unhelpful cycles and replace them with more balanced and effective patterns. In reviewing CBT, we’ve learned that our thoughts are not always accurate and can be changed, our behaviors can reinforce or challenge those thoughts, and that change is possible through both awareness and action.

Perhaps most importantly, CBT empowers people with skills they can continue using long after therapy ends. With time and practice, individuals can learn to approach challenges with greater flexibility, confidence, and resilience, creating lasting change in how they experience themselves and the world around them.

If you would like to learn more about CBT or speak with a professional counselor about any mental health challenges or concerns, please call Olive Branch Counseling Associates at 708-633-8000. You can meet with a professional counselor in person at 6819 167^th St. in Tinley Park, IL 60477, or we can arrange a telehealth appointment. It is our pleasure to be of service to you.

Molly Vacha

Graduate Intern, 2026

Olive Branch Counseling Associates, Inc.

Reference

Roth, D. A., Eng, W., & Heimberg, R. G. (2002). Cognitive behavior therapy. Encyclopedia of psychotherapy, 1, 451-459.