There are lots of different approaches to therapy so many people want to know which is ‘best’ before embarking on one. There is, however, no ‘best’ therapy as each brings different benefits but also misses out on some areas that might be important.
CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is more logical and scientific in nature. It works by analysing thoughts and emotions to identify which are helpful and which aren’t, then changing them to something which works better for us. The analytical aspect means that we can measure things on a scale, such as how we feel about something, and then reassess it after changing the thought pattern to see how it has improved. This evidence and logical approach can make it very attractive.
Hypnotherapy can also help as it can focus on a particular ‘sticky’ or deeply-held specific belief and reframe it in a different way, so that we get relief from it and no longer suffer quite so much from it.
Spiritual Therapies
Spiritual therapies and energy-based work take a different approach. CBT works if there is something specific going on that you can attribute cause and effect too, such as an anxiety caused by childhood trauma or role models that didn’t illustrate useful ways of acting. But what if this specific connection doesn’t exist? What about finding life difficult because you are highly sensitive, or gifted, or feel that there should be more to life but are dragged down by the environment you find yourself in?
Sometimes we feel and sense energy and find it difficult to work with or confusing, or are drawn towards something larger but don’t know what, or feel that our intuition is leading us down a path and we don’t understand why, or are resisting it.
In these types of situations the logical evidence-based approach might not work so we have to do something different, and this is where therapy that takes a more spiritual or energy-based angle can work better. It helps us to get more in tune with our deepest feelings, learn to understand them and work with them.
These forms also work better where we feel a connection with something intangible, such as energy or spirit guides or God. If there is no acknowledged scientific evidence for something but we still feel that it’s very real, then using a scientific approach is not going to be particularly useful for us. Spiritual-based therapy can also use a technique called pastoral counselling, which explores our deepest beliefs, the story of our lives and how we relate to the wider universe and belief systems.
Comparing CBT and Spiritual Therapies
The two broad approaches of spiritual and CBT are not mutually exclusive.
The analogy is to think of something like paracetamol. As a painkiller it works very well and if I have a headache or toothache then I can take one and it will be gone. This can be likened to CBT although it’s not always as quick and straightforward as that. But if I have persistent migraine or an infected abscess or a cancer then paracetamol will be of limited value and I will need something deeper and more powerful. But this doesn’t make paracetamol or CBT bad. In fact, it doesn’t affect the effectiveness of it one bit. All it does is show that different things are useful for different things. The trick, then, is picking the right type of treatment for what might ail us or what we are trying to do.
This is where mindfulness and a widely-trained therapist rather than a specialist can be useful. If all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail, but with a well-stocked tool bag you can tackle many different things but will also know when a specialist is needed for a particular job.