WHAT IS CBT ?
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." - Epictetus
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) believes that distress is not caused by external events themselves but the meaning and interpretation that one attributes to these events. CBT is a structured, action-oriented, here and now based, goal driven therapy that aims to challenge one's thoughts, alter behaviour, and offer emotional respite thereby reducing/eliminating distress.
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." - Seneca
The CBT Triangle
Intervowen elements
CBT helps you understand how your Thoughts (Cognition), affect your Emotions (Feelings) and Behaviour (Action).These elements are not linear, they are bidirectional (each one can cause the other).
WHAT CBT AIMS TO ACCOMPLISH ?
EVOLUTIONARY STANDPOINT
Neural Pathways
Our brains try to protect us from danger. It does this by predicting danger and preparing us for it. It is called predictive coding and is a survival algorithm.In danger situations, body sensations and emotions occur before conscious thinking. Our survival system in fact bypasses the thinking brain to keep us safe first, then think. Amygdala (body’s alarm system) is activated in 12-20 milliseconds, heart races, muscles tense, adrenaline is released, preparing for fight/flight/freeze response. This is the ‘Low Road’, it is fast, unconscious, automatic responses and designed for primal survival. A few milliseconds later, the thinking brain is activated. This is the ‘High Road’, the slower, conscious, rational thinking brain which calms the Low Road by telling it that its now okay, the situation is not so dangerous. Many times, in individuals experiencing Anxiety, Depression & Trauma, this Low Road is still overactive.
​
ALTERING THOUGHTS
Working on the High Road
The Low Road is simple, can’t make complex interpretations. The High Road, is the smarter rational pathway, can synthesise information better, is the complex problem solver but it can also indulge in inaccurate interpretations (cognitive distortions), biased information processing, negative beliefs, filling in the blanks, polarised thinking amidst others. This varies in individuals due to respective Apperceptive conditioning. The High Road, at times, keeps the brain in false alarm mode, triggering the Low Road response, thereby invoking anxiety/low moods. CBT targets this High Road, the thinking brain, by invoking the individual’s logic, reasoning, interpretations, inferences to alter thoughts, regulate emotions and change behaviour. At times, CBT seeks to first alter behaviour through exposure to feared situations eventually changing thoughts and regulating emotions (the bi-directionality).
THE ABOVE IS A TECHNICAL EXPLANATION.
​
IN SIMPLE TERMS
CBT inspects the maintaining (here and now) aspects of human distress and not the causal aspects. CBT believes, what started the problem is rarely what keeps it going. The historical context or the past, even though a strong contributory factor to present distress, CBT believes that these factors coalesce into a. various schemas and core beliefs (e.g I am worthless, I am inadequate, I am a failure etc.), b. rules & assumptions ( I must never make any mistakes) and c. negative automatic thoughts ( I am going to get fired, I am useless).
All these are deeply ingrained, unconscious blueprints formed since childhood but CBT treats these as hypotheses rather than facts and attempts to encourage the client to seek objective & realistic evidence. In a way, CBT works at the metacogntive level (thinking about thinking), makes an unprejudiced and impartial enquiry into clients presenting problems and maintenance factors, appeals to logic and reason, seeks evidence, and encourages practical problem solving.
THE BROAD IDEA IS TO FOSTER FUNCTIONAL ADAPTATION AND REDUCE DISTRESS. CBT AIMS TO ATTAIN THIS BY ‘COLLABORATIVE EMPIRICISM’ MEANING THERAPIST IS NOT THE ALL KNOWING PERSON WHO WILL FIX YOUR LIFE, RATHER IS A GUIDE FOR YOU TO ARRIVE AT ALTERNATIVES THEREBY BUILDING SELF-EFFICACY.
IN ESSENCE CBT DOES NOT VIEW THE CLIENT AS BROKEN RATHER SOMEONE WHO IS STUCK IN CERTAIN MAINTENANCE CYCLE, A SORT OF SELF PERPETUATING LOOP. THE VERY THING ONE DOES TO COPE WITH THE PROBLEM ACTUALLY FEEDS AND PRESERVES THE PROBLEM
CBT & EXISTENTIALISM
CBT is rooted in scientific & psychological explanation of emotional distress as it fits into 'evidence based, empirically supported aspects which is structured and measurable.
Existential philosophy views emotional distress as an inevitable part of being human that needs to be accepted and explored. It explores human condition, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness, death amongst others and a courageous confrontation with these. Rather than cure or erase the pain, it encourages the client to change relationship with the pain and live alongside it authentically. It believes in deconstructing blame ‘why is it happening to me’ and instead focus on agency ‘How can I live despite the situation’.
AS JEAN-PAUL SATRE PUTS IT, " FREEDOM IS WHAT YOU DO WITH WHAT'S BEEN DONE TO YOU
CBT vs EXISTENTIALISM
COMMONALITIES BETWEEN THEM
Both reject the idea that you are a victim of your past or your unconscious mind
Both assert that it is not external events rather it is the cognitive or philosophical appraisal of those events that cause distress
Both place responsibility on the self to change one's life (your thoughts, your actions) and does not believe in fate.
Both confront the finitude of time to motivate urgent, meaningful action in your daily life
Both teach you to actively shift perspective to alter the emotional weight of a situation
Both believe that the individual always retains the power to choose his/her response regardless of external constraints.
PRESENTING ISSUES WE DEAL WITH
'Read More' text links (below) takes you to mental health conditions that we deal with. It is segregated under lists, categories and rubrics. These are medical fraternity’s labelling for convenience, diagnostic ease, systematisation, clinical nomenclature and standardisation purposes so that universal indexing and understanding is established. The purpose of this is to quickly streamline treatment protocols, expedite intervention, administer care and for rapid therapeutic routing for right resource allocation.
At Headstride, we utilize these categories of distress only for positioning convenience and ease of reference to present areas of our expertise. Our therapeutic approach looks beyond these institutional classifications and labels, as individual distress cannot be reductively confined to a clinical checklist.
WE BELIEVE, HUMAN SUFFERING IS DYNAMIC, DEEPLY PERSONAL AND COMPLETELY UNIQUE TO EACH INDIVIDUAL IN HOW THEIR DISTRESS IS LIVED AND FELT.
WE PRACTICE CBT NOT AS A PRESCRIPTIVE PROTOCOL, BUT AS A SHARED, COLLABORATIVE, HUMAN SPIRIT OF ENQUIRY.
​
​
"MOST PEOPLE PREFER THE CERTAINTY OF MISERY TO THE MISERY OF UNCERTAINTY" - Virginia Satir​
​We encourage our clients to safely step into
THE UNCERTAINTY OF CHANGE WITH CURIOSITY RATHER THAN FEAR
To rewrite one’s own story
NOT AS AN ASPECT OF A DISEMPOWERED PAST,
BUT AS A SELF-AUTHORED FUTURE.
​
YOUR JOURNEY WITH US
Individuals may carry the weight of distress for a considerable time, attempt multiple self-directed interventions, heal a bit, but when things become unmanageable and emotions become unsustainable, finally seek professional therapy. We recognise this journey, understand the silent exhaustion behind it, and hold deep empathy for the suffering you endure.
BUT WE ALSO APPRECIATE YOUR COURAGE IN TAKING
THIS FIRST STEP TO ACTIVELY SEEK HELP.
CBT ENGAGEMENT STEPS
ASSESSMENT
Assessment gathers individual aspects of your distress. We explore your presenting symptoms, clinical history, and your existing coping mechanisms, alongside the daily behavioural routines and thinking habits shaping it. This includes your underlying emotional states and the specific environmental triggers involved, using structured conversation and, where useful, standardised measures to build an accurate, evidence-based insight into your experience. This first step allows us to make sense of how these patterns unfold in your life.​
FORMULATION
Formulation maps out why the distress exists and persists. It is an active, co-constructed process that translates your unique experience into a clear picture of what's really driving it. Together, we shape this into a working hypothesis rather than a fixed truth — collaborative and provisional, evolving as therapy progresses, and one we remain willing to question, challenge, test, and revise as treatment unfolds. This personalised, visual framework is what then guides the specific techniques we use in your treatment.​
TREATMENT
Once we know the maintaining factors behind your distress, treatment can target them directly. We draw on evidence-based CBT techniques — including psychoeducation, behavioural activation, cognitive restructuring, graded exposure, among others — chosen specifically from your own formulation. Outside sessions, you practise tasks and experiments, so change is tested and reinforced in daily life. These gains are then consolidated, refined, and integrated into daily functioning, producing deliberate, measurable transformation.​
RELAPSE MGMT
Old patterns can get reactivated when new stressors occur. Skills learnt in therapy take time to become muscle memory, needing repeated practice; overwhelming stress can block access to these learnt skills before they are truly automatic. Relapse Management addresses this: together, we build a personalised plan to spot early warning signs, distinguish a temporary lapse from a clinically significant relapse, rehearse coping responses under pressure, and revisit key techniques so these skills consolidate into lasting change. ​
ENGAGEMENT WITH US
Every engagement with us follows an arc — a curve with a beginning, a turn, and a point where it holds. An initial state: you communicating your distress. A period of rising tension: the work of change. And a point where it holds: a resolution that is meaningful — proof that something has genuinely changed, not just temporary relief, but a different relationship with distress altogether. It's not an ending, but the ability to meet what comes next in life: a capacity carried forward.
​
UNDERSTANDING IS THE BEGINNING OF THE ARC
We listen closely to what you're carrying, and build together a shared picture of what's keeping the distress in place.
CHANGE AND INSIGHT ARE THE TURN OF THE ARC
Long-held beliefs are treated as hypotheses rather than facts: challenged directly, and tested against lived experience. Insight isn't a single revelation; it accumulates, until the old interpretation simply stops fitting.
​
RESILIENCE IS WHERE THE ARC COMPLETES
What's been learnt holds — not just in the room, but long after we stop meeting.​
THE ARC GIVES SHAPE TO THE WORK —
BUT NOT TO WHAT BRINGS SOMEONE TO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
DISTRESS ITSELF FOLLOWS NO SUCH ORDER.
NONE OF THE FIVE OPTIONS ARE WRONG
MOST PEOPLE DRAW ON SEVERAL, IF NOT ALL, PERHAPS IN COMBINATION.
'Managing alone' builds autonomy; 'self-help resources' offer structure; 'AI' offers round-the-clock availability and broad subject-matter knowledge, but lacks an evolving clinical formulation — the ability to reflect on distress as it's happening, tease it out in real time, assess risk, and respond with genuine empathetic understanding. 'Medication' regulates acute symptoms and stabilises the nervous system in crisis, but it treats the biology of distress, not the thinking and behaviour patterns that generate and sustain it. Symptoms often return once medication stops.
'CBT' PULLS THESE THREADS TOGETHER INTO A SINGLE, COHERENT PATH.
It understands distress from a psychological, phenomenological (unique, subjective, lived experience of each person) standpoint, and restructures the mechanism that produces it.
​BECAUSE WHAT'S LEARNED IS A TRANSFERABLE SKILL RATHER THAN A FIX FOR ONE CRISIS.
IT CREATES LASTING CHANGE — EQUIPPING THE CLIENT TO MEET WHATEVER LIFE BRINGS NEXT, NOT JUST THE DISTRESS THAT BROUGHT THEM HERE.
​CHOOSING TO LIVE
Facing the absurd
Distress can strip life of meaning, bringing one to the cusp of 'is it worth living?' Camus's philosophical dark humoured coffee line collapses the gravest question — should I end my life — into the same breath as the mundane — should I have coffee. Camus calls this the absurd: our hunger for meaning meeting a universe that offers none. Suicide, in his framework, is an exit from facing the absurd. Living on — getting up, making the coffee, persisting through days with no guaranteed meaning — is the harder, more courageous act. He calls it revolt: not resolving the absurd, nor escaping it, but living fully within it.
CHOOSING TO LIVE DESPITE MEANINGLESSNESS IS THE ULTIMATE ACT OF DEFIANCE.​​​
DEFIANCE NOT AGAINST LIVING - BUT IN SERVICE OF IT.
AN INSISTENCE ON LIVING, EYES OPEN, WITHOUT AN ANSWER, WITHOUT NEEDING ONE AND EMBRACING THE CLIMB.
​
CBT OPERATIONALISES THIS REVOLT.
Beck, its founder, identified hopelessness — not sadness — as the strongest predictor of suicidal thinking: the collapse of any sense that options remain. CBT works the same way, in small increments — testing one thought, attempting one action at a time. No single step carries much weight, any more than one cup of coffee does. But through small, repeated acts, I build evidence against the conclusion that 'nothing remains worth choosing'.​
WHERE CAMUS NAMED THE COURAGE TO LIVE, CBT BUILDS THE CAPACITY FOR IT.
'Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.'
- Jean de La Bruyère
GRASPING EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM AND POSSIBILITIES CAN HAPPEN ONCE WE GRASP THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEATH AND OUR FINITUDE.
BEING-TOWARD
being towards death is in a way being towards life
the way we view choices
the decisions we take
the actions we commit to
and the inactivity we pursue
HEADSTRIDE SALES BLOGS
OUR BLOGS OFFER OUR READERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE OUR THOUGHTS AND CENTRAL THEME PRIOR TO AN ENGAGEMENT WITH US.
We encourage you to read it as we feel, trust could precede our engagement. We have always sought for advancement and alteration of our frame of reference as and when new philosophical/psychological constructs or material emerge in the sales arena.
OUR PUBLICATIONS PRESERVE AND REFLECT THIS ETHOS.
HEADSTRIDE COACHING ENVELOPS THE APPERCEPTIVE FRAMEWORK THAT IS A HARVEST OUT OF EXISTENTIAL, COGNITIVE & PSYCHODYNAMIC SOW.
IT HAS CONCEPTUAL SPREAD, EXPANSIVENESS AND SUFFICIENCY FOR ACCOMPLISHMENT CENTRIC WORK
HEADSTRIDE SALES BLOGS
OUR BLOGS OFFER OUR READERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE OUR THOUGHTS AND CENTRAL THEME PRIOR TO AN ENGAGEMENT WITH US.
We encourage you to read it as we feel, trust could precede our engagement. We have always sought for advancement and alteration of our frame of reference as and when new philosophical/psychological constructs or material emerge in the sales arena.
OUR PUBLICATIONS PRESERVE AND REFLECT THIS ETHOS.
ANXIETY
EXISTENTIAL
COACHING
BEING-TOWARD
Understanding the significance of individual existence, grasping the meaning & absurdities of Being & negotiating the journey into authenticity.
NEW INFORMATION/ STIMULUS IS NOT PERCEIVED, IT IS APPERCEIVED.
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE IS A PRODUCT OF APPERCEPTION
APPERCEPTION IS A MENTAL PROCESS BY WHICH ANY NEW INFORMATION, CONCEPT, THEORY IS COMPARED AND CONTRASTED WITH ALREADY EXISTENT MENTAL CONTENT AND THEREBY CLASSIFIED, EXPLAINED OR UNDERSTOOD.
EXISTENTIAL COACHING
A PHILOSOPHICAL UNRAVELING
Understanding the significance of individual existence, grasping the meaning & absurdities of Being & negotiating the journey into authenticity.
Understanding the significance of individual existence, grasping the meaning & absurdities of Being & negotiating the journey into authenticity.
