Cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to help clients with anxiety problems, depression and obsessive compulsive disorders. Paul Green describes how attending an innovative training programme helped him to gain confidence in using the approach

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a structured, problem-orientated therapy in which clients learn to identify and develop strategies to change maladaptive thinking patterns and behaviours. Using a collaborative approach, therapists engage clients through a process of ‘guided discovery’. They ask questions that prompt clients to examine and evaluate their own thoughts and behaviours before reaching a desired end point or reinterpretation.