Publish date: 15 February 2024
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave.
CBT uses a range of techniques to help the person with diabetes to create more helpful cycles. These techniques target the emotional impact of living with diabetes as well as helping the person to develop practical tools to support self-management:
- Challenging unhelpful thoughts and replacing them with more helpful thoughts
- Setting realistic, manageable goals
- Problem-solving support
- Developing stress management and relaxation tools
- Developing communication strategies to help communicate our self-management needs to others
For example challenging unhelpful or inaccurate thoughts about not being able to cope with diabetes and setting more realistic and tailored goals can help to build confidence and lower anxiety, stress and depression. This in turn leads to helpful behaviour change such as lifestyle modifications, which further increases confidence and wellbeing, as well as improving BG levels.
Lucy Kozlowski, Clinical Psychologist, BSW Talking Therapies Lead for Long Term Conditions said “CBT is an important part of treatment for diabetes. We know that living with diabetes can bring many challenges and that self-management of the condition can be hard work. It is common for people to experience difficult thoughts or to feel distressed and overwhelmed by the demands of diabetes. Talking through your thoughts and feelings with a trained CBT therapist can aid with developing new more helpful ways of thinking about diabetes as well as helping you to develop effective self-management strategies, boosting your confidence, wellbeing and overall health.”
BaNES, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW) Talking Therapies offer a range of CBT-based support options including educational courses, online CBT support and 1:1 support.
If you feel you would benefit from Talking Therapies to support you with managing your long-term condition please get in contact here to self-refer for an assessment.
