About Benjamin Carrettin Licensed Therapist

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”

-Leo Tolstoy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Mindfulness-Integrated CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy)

Mindfulness based therapies are based on age old techniques that have been used across the globe and have more recently been combined with CBT. As a compliment to CBT, mindfulness training enhances awareness of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors as they occur, while emphasizing acceptance of individual experiences.

Mindfullness can be described as “focusing with intention, in the present moment, without judgement”. Mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches take the view that attempting to change the content of incapacitating thoughts is less productive in the long term than learning to develop control over the processes that maintain them.

Because much of life stress stems from worrying about past or future events, present focused training is a powerful method by which to handle discomfort caused by unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The basic objective is to redefine our appraisal of what thoughts are; just “thoughts”, rather than “truths” we have about ourselves and the world.

The Core Goals of Mindfulness-Integrated CBT are:

  1. Gain attentional control and discontinue living “automatically”. Increase your ability to shift attention, rather than allowing emotion to determine your focus.
  2. Cultivate a nonjudgemental and more objective perspecitve of emotions, thoughts, and physiologic sensations. You as a whole are much more than thoughts and emotions.
  3. Increase ability to live in the momentrather than focusing on the past or the future. Live life to the fullest by focsuing attention on current experiences in the here and now.