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Published:
November 17, 2025

CBT For Dummies

Overview

Easily understand how to apply the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to your own life

CBT For Dummies is the gold standard guide to the gold standard form of psychotherapy. This proven treatment helps with common emotional problems like anxiety, depression, panic, and social anxiety. It's also the evidence-based treatment of choice for common mental health problems like PTSD, body dysmorphic disorder, OCD and beyond. CBT can also help you develop healthier habits, manage your social media use, and improve your life in all sorts of other ways. With this book, you get a comprehensive look at practicing CBT on your own or using CBT with your care providers. Work through exercises to identify thinking patterns that are getting in your way, then learn practical techniques for changing them. In classic Dummies fashion, CBT For Dummies offers easy-to-follow guidance and information anyone can understand.

  • Learn about cognitive behavioral therapy and the science behind it
  • Overcome anxiety and depression, boost self-esteem, manage emotions, or simply improve personal productivity and happiness
  • Break free from your behavioral challenges to achieve your goals
  • Begin to heal from trauma and achieve a healthier outlook on life

This is a great Dummies guide for anyone who's interested in the many benefits CBT can have—in therapy session or on your own.

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About The Author

Rob Willson, PhD, is a cognitive behavioral therapist, researcher, trainer, and supervisor in private practice. He has 30 years’ experience treating patients with CBT and regularly trains therapists, psychologists, and performance coaches in cognitive behavioral techniques.

Rhena Branch, BSc, MSc, Dip CBT, is a BABCP accredited CBT practitioner, supervisor and trainer. She has been treating clients and training students for over 15 years.

Sample Chapters

cbt for dummies

CHEAT SHEET

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you understand how the way you think about yourself and situations in your life impacts your emotions and actions.Learning to form different and more productive perspectives on life can help you feel and act in self-enhancing ways. This commonly involves pushing through anxiety or low mood, challenging negative thoughts, establishing and pursuing viable goals, and looking after your physical self along the way.

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Articles from
the book

Psychological problems are no more mysterious than physical ones. In the recent past (and even today) people often viewed mental health problems as a sign of intrinsic character flaws. If your body has a problem, that’s understandable, but if your mind has a problem, then something must be wrong with the whole of you.
One of the central messages of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that your thoughts, your attitudes, and the beliefs you hold have a big effect on the way you interpret the world around you and on how you feel. So, if you’re feeling excessively bad, chances are that you’re thinking badly — or, at least, in an unhelpful way.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you understand how the way you think about yourself and situations in your life impacts your emotions and actions.Learning to form different and more productive perspectives on life can help you feel and act in self-enhancing ways. This commonly involves pushing through anxiety or low mood, challenging negative thoughts, establishing and pursuing viable goals, and looking after your physical self along the way.
If you are beginning thinking about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), you need to examine openly whether your past experiences have led you to develop core beliefs that may be causing your current emotional difficulties.People are sometimes surprised to find out that CBT considers the past an important aspect of understanding one’s problems.
Anxiety is a bully. And like most bullies, the more you let it shove you around, the pushier it gets. The principle of facing your fears until your anxiety reduces is one of the cornerstones of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Get to know the nature of anxiety and to identify the ways in which it pushes you about.
Cognitive behavioral therapy – more commonly referred to as CBT – focuses on the way people think and act to help them with their emotional and behavioral problems.Many of the effective CBT practices we discuss in this book should seem like everyday good sense. In our opinion, CBT does have some very straightforward and clear principles and is a largely sensible and practical approach to helping people overcome problems.
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Frequently Asked Questions

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