You may have heard that your attachment style is set in stone, but that’s simply not true. Anxious attachment is a pattern of thoughts and behaviors you learned to feel safe, often in response to inconsistent care early in life. The good news is that what was learned can be unlearned. You have the power to create new, more secure ways of connecting with others. Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxious attachment style provides a clear roadmap for this change. It’s not about endlessly analyzing your past; it’s about learning practical skills to manage your thoughts and emotions in the present, empowering you to build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Key Takeaways

• Anxious attachment is a learned strategy, not a life sentence: It's often an old coping mechanism from childhood that no longer serves you. Understanding its origins is the key to changing how you connect with others today.
• CBT gives you tools to interrupt anxious reactions: This therapy teaches you to pause and question the automatic thoughts that fuel anxiety. By reframing your thinking, you can choose to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting out of fear.
• True security is built from within, not sought from others: The ultimate goal is to learn how to soothe your own distress and build self-confidence. This practice creates lasting emotional stability and allows for healthier relationships based on trust.

What Is Anxious Attachment Style?

If you often feel a deep-seated worry about your relationships, you might have an anxious attachment style. This isn't a character flaw or a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s often a pattern learned in childhood as a way to get attention and care from caregivers who were inconsistent with their affection. Think of it as a clever, adaptive strategy your younger self developed to make sure your needs were met. Now, as an adult, that same pattern can show up as anxiety and uncertainty in your romantic partnerships.

Understanding your attachment style is the first step toward building more secure and satisfying connections. It’s about recognizing the "why" behind your feelings and behaviors so you can start to approach your relationships with more confidence and less fear.

Key Signs and Behaviors

People with an anxious attachment style often spend a lot of energy worrying about the stability of their relationships. You might find yourself overthinking your partner's words or actions, fearing they’ll leave, and struggling to trust that their feelings for you are genuine and lasting. This can look like a constant need for reassurance that you are loved and valued. You may also feel that your emotional state is heavily dependent on your partner’s mood or the current status of your relationship, making it hard to feel settled and secure on your own. This pattern can leave you feeling emotionally exhausted and constantly on edge.

How It Affects Your Relationships

When you have an anxious attachment style, your relationships can feel like a source of constant stress rather than comfort. This pattern is considered an insecure attachment style, meaning it comes with a baseline level of anxiety about connection. You might live with a persistent concern for your emotional safety, always on the lookout for signs that something is wrong. This underlying fear can lead to cycles of seeking reassurance, which can sometimes feel demanding to a partner. This creates a push-and-pull dynamic that leaves both of you feeling misunderstood and drained, even when you both want to be close.

Common Myths vs. Reality

One of the biggest myths about anxious attachment is that people with this style are simply "too needy" or "clingy." This is an outdated and unhelpful label that dismisses the real fear of abandonment underneath. The reality is that you’re craving security, not trying to be difficult. Another common misconception is that an anxious attachment style only stems from major childhood trauma. While it can, it can also develop from more subtle inconsistencies in caregiving. It’s a pattern of relating to others, not a life sentence, and it’s something you can absolutely work on and change.

How CBT Helps with Anxious Attachment

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is a practical and effective approach for managing the patterns of an anxious attachment style. Instead of just talking about your past, CBT focuses on what’s happening in your thoughts and behaviors right now. It gives you tangible tools to understand why you feel so anxious in your relationships and provides clear, actionable steps to create a greater sense of security and peace. By learning to identify and reshape the thought patterns that fuel anxiety, you can fundamentally change how you experience your connections with others.

Connecting Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions

At its core, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is built on the idea that your thoughts, feelings, and actions are all linked. Think of them as three points of a triangle; when you change one, the others follow. For someone with an anxious attachment style, a simple event can trigger a cascade of distress. For example, your partner doesn’t text back right away. The automatic thought might be, “They’re losing interest.” This thought creates a feeling of anxiety, which then leads to an action, like sending multiple follow-up texts. CBT helps you press pause on this cycle. By learning to notice and question that initial thought, you can prevent the anxious feeling and reactive behavior from taking over.

Why CBT Is Effective for Attachment Issues

CBT is so helpful for attachment issues because it’s an active, hands-on therapy. It equips you with practical skills to manage the intense emotions that come with relationship anxiety. You’ll learn how to become a detective of your own mind, spotting the automatic negative thoughts that pop up and questioning their validity. Is it really true that your partner is mad, or could they just be busy? CBT provides structured techniques to challenge these thoughts and replace them with more balanced and realistic ones. It’s not about ignoring your feelings, but about understanding the thoughts that drive them so you can regain a sense of control.

Learn to Respond, Not Just React

Anxious attachment often involves reacting from a place of fear, especially the fear of abandonment. CBT teaches you how to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively. You’ll learn to challenge those worst-case scenarios that your mind jumps to and build a greater tolerance for uncertainty and independence within your relationship. Instead of letting the thought “They’re going to leave me” run the show, you can learn to question it and consider other possibilities. This process helps reduce the constant need for reassurance because you start building that security from within. A trained therapist can guide you through this process, helping you practice these new skills in a supportive environment.

Signs You Might Benefit from CBT

Recognizing that your attachment style is causing you pain is a huge first step. If you've ever wondered if your patterns are something you can change, the answer is yes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a practical approach that helps you connect the dots between your thoughts, feelings, and actions. If some of the following signs sound familiar, it might be a signal that CBT could be an effective tool for you in building more secure and fulfilling relationships.

You Constantly Seek Reassurance

Do you find yourself constantly worrying about your relationship? This often shows up as a need for your partner to confirm their feelings for you, again and again. People with an anxious attachment style might feel a wave of anxiety if a partner doesn't text back quickly or might over-analyze conversations for hidden meanings. This pattern of reassurance seeking can be exhausting for both you and your partner. It stems from a deep-seated worry about the relationship's stability, and it's a cycle that CBT can help you understand and break.

You Overthink and Fear Abandonment

A persistent fear of being left behind is a hallmark of an anxious attachment style. This isn't just a fleeting worry; it's a deep-seated concern that can cause you to overthink everything your partner says and does. You might find yourself constantly scanning for signs of trouble or interpreting neutral actions as proof that they are about to leave. This fear of abandonment can make it incredibly difficult to feel emotionally safe and truly present in your relationship. At The Relationship Clinic, we help you explore the roots of this fear and develop tools to manage it.

You Struggle with Being Alone

For someone with an anxious attachment style, being alone can feel deeply uncomfortable or even unbearable. You might feel that your sense of well-being is almost entirely dependent on your partner's presence and approval. Because of this, even small relationship issues can trigger intense emotional reactions, making it feel like your world is falling apart. This dependency can make it hard to maintain your own identity and interests outside of the relationship. Learning to self-soothe and feel secure on your own is a key part of the work we do in couples and individual counseling.

Use CBT to Reframe Anxious Thoughts

One of the most powerful things you can do to manage an anxious attachment style is to change the way you think. Anxious thoughts often feel automatic and true, but they’re usually just stories we tell ourselves based on old fears. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) gives you practical tools to question these stories and write new, more balanced ones. It’s not about ignoring your feelings, but about understanding the thoughts that trigger them. By learning to reframe your thoughts, you can stop anxiety from controlling your actions and your relationships.

Restructure Your Thinking Patterns

Anxious attachment often grows from deep-seated beliefs you may not even be aware of, like "I'm not good enough" or "Everyone eventually leaves." These core beliefs can come from early life experiences and silently direct your reactions in relationships. A key part of CBT is learning to identify these underlying patterns. The first step is simply noticing the automatic negative thoughts that pop into your head when you feel insecure. By bringing these thoughts into the light, you can start to see them for what they are: old habits, not facts. This awareness is the foundation for changing how you think and feel.

Use Thought Records to Gain Clarity

A thought record is a simple but effective tool for untangling your anxious moments. Think of it as a structured journal where you write down what’s happening. You typically track the situation that triggered you, the automatic thought that followed, the feeling it created, and how you behaved. For example: "My partner went out with friends (situation), I thought 'They'd rather be with them than me' (thought), I felt sad and rejected (feeling), and I sent them a passive-aggressive text (behavior)." Putting it all on paper helps you see the direct link between your thoughts and actions. It creates a bit of space, allowing you to look at your thoughts more objectively instead of getting swept away by them.

Challenge Worst-Case Scenarios

When you have an anxious attachment style, your mind can be quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion. This is a type of cognitive distortion called "catastrophizing." For instance, if your partner is quiet, you might immediately think they’re planning to break up with you, rather than considering they might just be tired or stressed from work. CBT teaches you to catch these distortions and challenge them. You can do this by asking yourself simple questions like, "What's a more realistic explanation for this?" or "What evidence do I have that my fear is true?" This practice helps you consider alternative possibilities and breaks the habit of assuming the worst.

Examples of Reframing Anxious Thoughts

Let's see what this looks like in practice. The goal is to interrupt the cycle before an anxious thought leads to a reactive behavior.

• Anxious Thought: "They haven't replied to my text for three hours. They're ignoring me and losing interest."
• Challenge: "Is there another reason they might not have replied? They told me they had a big presentation this afternoon. They're probably just busy and focused."
• Reframed Thought: "They're likely caught up with work. I'll hear from them when they're free. In the meantime, I can focus on something I enjoy."

This small shift in perspective can prevent feelings of panic and stop you from sending a string of worried texts. A trained therapist can help you get better at spotting and reframing these thoughts in the moment.

Change Anxious Behaviors with CBT

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy goes beyond just understanding your thoughts; it gives you practical tools to change the anxious actions that follow. It’s about learning to handle intense emotions in the moment and choosing healthier ways to act in your relationships. Instead of being driven by fear, you can learn to respond with intention. This process helps you build confidence in yourself and your connections, one small action at a time. By actively changing your behaviors, you create new experiences that challenge your old anxious beliefs.

Try Behavioral Experiments

Think of behavioral experiments as a way to test your fears in the real world. If you have an anxious attachment style, you might worry that if your partner doesn't text back immediately, something is terribly wrong. A behavioral experiment would involve intentionally waiting a little longer before following up. The goal is to see what actually happens. More often than not, you’ll find that your worst fears don’t come true. These small, controlled tests provide powerful evidence against your anxious thoughts, helping you gradually trust that you and your relationship are secure.

Face Your Relationship Fears Step-by-Step

Facing your fears doesn't mean diving into the deep end. With CBT, you approach them gradually to build resilience. This might look like spending a short, planned period of time apart from your partner or practicing tolerance when there’s a delay in communication. You can also practice new relational skills, like expressing a small need or setting a gentle boundary. Each step is designed to be manageable, allowing you to build confidence and prove to yourself that you can handle situations that once felt overwhelming. It’s a gentle way to expand your comfort zone.

Develop Self-Soothing Techniques

A key part of changing anxious behaviors is learning how to calm your own nervous system. CBT helps you recognize the early physical signs of anxiety so you can intervene before your emotions spiral. You can learn simple but effective self-soothing techniques to use in these moments. One popular method is the "5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise," where you name five things you see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. This pulls your focus out of your anxious thoughts and back into the present moment.

Break Compulsive Checking Habits

Anxious attachment often comes with compulsive behaviors, like checking your phone constantly, rereading old messages, or seeking constant reassurance. These actions provide a fleeting sense of relief but ultimately reinforce the anxiety long-term. CBT helps you identify and reduce these habits. By learning to spot the distorted thoughts that fuel these compulsions, you can begin to challenge them instead of acting on them. When you stop automatically reacting to the urge to check or ask for validation, you break the cycle. This gives you the chance to build genuine self-assurance from within, rather than depending on external sources.

What to Expect in Your CBT Sessions

Starting therapy can feel like a big step, so it helps to know what the process looks like. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a structured, collaborative approach. You won’t just be talking about your past; you’ll be actively learning and practicing new skills to change your present and future. Think of your therapist as a guide and a partner who is there to support you as you learn to build healthier relationship patterns.

Working Together with Your Therapist

Your first few sessions are about building a connection and a shared understanding. Your therapist will want to hear about your specific worries and the situations that trigger your relationship anxiety. This isn't about judgment; it's about gathering information so they can help you effectively. They will explain the fundamentals of CBT and how it connects to your anxious attachment patterns. From the very beginning, you are a team. You’ll work together to set meaningful goals, ensuring the therapy is tailored to what you want to achieve. This collaborative spirit is central to making real, lasting progress in your relationships and with yourself.

Set Goals and Practice New Skills

CBT is an active, hands-on therapy. Together with your therapist, you will set clear, practical goals. Maybe you want to reduce how often you seek reassurance or feel more at ease when your partner is out with friends. Once you have your goals, you’ll start learning new skills to reach them. This involves identifying anxious thoughts, challenging their validity, and changing the behaviors that reinforce your anxiety. Your therapist will also likely give you "homework," which is just a way to practice these new skills in your daily life. This practice is what helps turn therapy insights into real-world habits.

What's the Timeline for Seeing Change?

While everyone’s journey is different, you can expect to notice changes relatively quickly with consistent effort. Many people start to become more aware of their anxious thought patterns and triggers within the first month or two. This initial awareness is a huge first step. As you continue with weekly sessions, you’ll likely start to feel a real shift in your mood and behaviors. Most people report feeling significantly better within 6 to 12 sessions. The key is consistency. The more you engage in the process and practice your new skills, the sooner you’ll see positive changes in how you feel and relate to others.

The Role of a Trained Therapist

Finding the right therapist is crucial for your success. You need someone who creates a safe, non-judgmental space where you feel comfortable being vulnerable. Look for a professional who not only specializes in CBT but also has a deep understanding of attachment styles and relationship dynamics. This expertise ensures they can provide guidance that is both effective and compassionate. When you’re ready to start, we encourage you to reach out to a qualified therapist who can support you. A great therapist won’t just give you tools; they’ll empower you to use them with confidence.

Practice CBT Techniques on Your Own

While working with a therapist provides guidance and support, you can start applying Cognitive Behavioral Therapy principles to your life right now. These techniques are practical tools you can use to manage anxious thoughts and feelings as they arise. Integrating these practices into your daily routine helps you build resilience and a stronger sense of self, complementing the work you might do in therapy. Think of them as your personal toolkit for creating more emotional balance and security in your relationships and within yourself.

Use Journaling to Build Self-Awareness

Journaling is a powerful tool for building self-awareness and understanding the roots of your anxious attachment. When you write down your thoughts and feelings, you create distance from them, which allows you to observe them more objectively. Try to notice what triggers your anxiety. Is it a specific comment from your partner? A period of silence? By documenting these moments, you can start to see clear patterns in your thinking. This practice isn't about judging yourself; it's about gathering information. Over time, your journal will reveal the specific thought loops that fuel your anxiety, giving you a clear starting point for challenging and reframing them.

Incorporate Daily Mindfulness

Anxious thoughts often pull you into worrying about the future or replaying the past. Mindfulness brings you back to the present moment. This practice involves paying attention to your feelings and physical sensations without judgment. When you feel a wave of anxiety, try a simple grounding exercise. For example, you can use the 5-4-3-2-1 method: name five things you see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This simple act interrupts the anxiety spiral and anchors you in your current environment. Regular mindfulness helps you become more aware of your emotional responses as they happen, giving you a chance to choose how you react.

Build Your Emotional Regulation Skills

Sometimes, even when you logically know a thought is irrational, your body still feels anxious. CBT provides essential skills for emotion regulation to help you manage these physical responses. The first step is to notice the early signs of a strong emotion. Maybe your chest tightens, your stomach churns, or your breathing becomes shallow. When you recognize these signals, you can intervene with a calming technique before the feeling becomes overwhelming. Simple deep breathing exercises, where you inhale slowly for four counts and exhale for six, can calm your nervous system. Learning to soothe yourself in these moments is a critical step toward feeling more secure and less dependent on others for comfort.

Overcome Common Challenges in CBT

Starting Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a huge step, but the path isn't always a straight line. It’s completely normal to encounter a few hurdles along the way. You might feel resistant to new ideas, get hit with a wave of intense emotions, or struggle to let go of old habits. Think of these challenges not as setbacks, but as opportunities to deepen your understanding of yourself.

Facing these moments is a core part of the therapeutic process. When you feel stuck, it often means you’re on the verge of a breakthrough. The key is to approach these challenges with curiosity and self-compassion, working alongside your therapist to find a way through. Recognizing these common bumps in the road can help you feel prepared and less discouraged when they appear. With the right tools and support, you can work through anything that comes up.

Work Through Resistance to Change

If you find yourself resisting some of the exercises or ideas in therapy, you’re not alone. Change is uncomfortable, and our brains often prefer the familiar, even when it’s painful. Anxious attachment patterns can feel like a core part of who you are, and the idea of letting them go can be scary. This resistance is a normal defense mechanism. Instead of fighting it, get curious about it. Your therapist can help you explore where this resistance comes from. While early experiences can shape your attachment, you absolutely can develop and modify your attachment style through therapy and new relationship experiences. It’s about learning that you are safe, even when you try something new.

Handle Moments of Emotional Overwhelm

Anxious attachment can come with big, overwhelming emotions that feel like they come out of nowhere. One minute you’re fine, and the next you’re spiraling into panic. CBT gives you practical tools to manage these moments so you don't get swept away. The goal isn't to stop feeling, but to learn how to ride the wave. Your therapist will help you notice the early signs of strong emotions and use calming techniques to ground yourself. You can practice things like the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise, where you name things you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste. These self-soothing techniques help bring you back to the present moment and show you that you can handle difficult feelings.

Manage the Urge for Reassurance

That intense need to text again, ask if everything is okay, or get validation is a hallmark of anxious attachment. While it feels urgent, constantly seeking reassurance can strain your relationships and your own peace of mind. CBT helps you get to the root of this urge by targeting the thoughts that drive it. You learn to question those automatic negative thoughts, like “They’re mad at me” or “They’re going to leave,” and replace them with more balanced ones. By challenging these unhelpful beliefs, you can gradually reduce the compulsive behaviors they cause. This is a key part of the work we do in individual counseling, helping you build internal security so you don’t have to constantly seek it from others.

Build a Secure Attachment with CBT

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offers a practical, hands-on approach to help you move toward a more secure attachment style. Instead of feeling stuck in cycles of anxiety and reassurance-seeking, you can learn concrete skills to change the way you think, feel, and act in your relationships. The goal isn't to erase your past experiences but to build new, healthier pathways for connection in the present. By focusing on your current patterns, CBT empowers you to take control of your responses and cultivate the security you deserve, both within yourself and with your partner. This process helps you build a foundation of trust and emotional stability, one thought and one action at a time.

Improve Your Communication

One of the core ideas in CBT is that your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected. If you can change one, you can influence the others. For someone with an anxious attachment style, a thought like, "They haven't texted back, they must be mad at me," can quickly spiral into feelings of panic and behaviors like sending a flood of messages. CBT helps you press pause on that cycle. You'll learn to identify the thought that triggers the emotional reaction and choose a more intentional response. A key skill is learning to express your needs clearly using "I" statements. Instead of reacting with an accusation, you can learn to say, "I feel worried when I don't hear from you, and I would appreciate a quick message when you can." This simple shift can transform your communication from reactive to proactive.

Develop Healthier Relationship Patterns

Anxious attachment is often fueled by deep-seated fears of abandonment and a habit of overthinking. CBT gives you the tools to directly address these patterns. A therapist will help you spot the automatic negative thoughts that feed your anxiety and teach you how to question them. You'll learn to ask yourself: "Is this fear based on what's happening right now, or is it an old story I'm telling myself?" This process, known as cognitive restructuring, helps you challenge your fears and develop more balanced perspectives. Over time, you'll find you can better tolerate moments of uncertainty and independence without immediately assuming the worst. This builds resilience and helps you break free from the constant need for external validation, which is a critical step in fostering a secure attachment.

Combining CBT with Other Therapies

While CBT is incredibly effective for managing current thoughts and behaviors, it can also be part of a more comprehensive therapeutic plan. Your attachment style developed from early life experiences, and sometimes it's helpful to explore those roots. At The Relationship Clinic, we often integrate CBT with other approaches like the Gottman Method or Internal Family Systems (IFS) to create a plan that fits your unique needs. This allows you to work on practical skills for today while also understanding the origins of your attachment patterns. Remember, your attachment style isn't set in stone. With the right support from a trained therapist, you can absolutely modify your patterns and build the secure, fulfilling relationships you want.

Lasting Benefits of CBT for Anxious Attachment

Putting in the work to understand and reshape your anxious attachment style with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) pays off in ways that extend far beyond your therapy sessions. It’s not about finding a temporary fix for your anxiety; it’s about building a new foundation for how you relate to yourself and others. The skills you learn become a part of you, leading to profound and lasting changes in your life. These benefits create a positive cycle, where healthier thoughts and behaviors lead to more positive experiences, which in turn reinforce your new, more secure way of being. You’ll start to see real, tangible improvements in your relationships, your emotional well-being, and your own self-perception.

Greater Satisfaction in Your Relationships

One of the most significant outcomes of using CBT is a noticeable improvement in your relationships. As you begin to develop a more secure attachment style, you’ll find it easier to feel comfortable with both intimacy and independence. This balance allows you to connect deeply with a partner without losing yourself in the process. Instead of seeking constant reassurance, you can build relationships based on open communication and mutual trust. This shift doesn't just reduce conflict; it fosters a genuine partnership where both people feel seen, heard, and valued. The goal of couples counseling is often to build this exact kind of secure, satisfying connection.

More Emotional Stability and Peace

Anxious attachment often feels like being on an emotional rollercoaster, where small triggers can lead to intense anxiety and fear. CBT gives you the tools to get off that ride. You’ll learn how to recognize the early signs of strong emotions and use calming techniques to manage them before they become overwhelming. This practice of emotion regulation helps you feel more in control of your inner world. Instead of reacting to every spike of anxiety, you can respond with intention and care. Over time, this leads to a powerful sense of emotional stability and a quiet, internal peace that feels steady and reliable, even when life gets complicated.

A Stronger Sense of Self and Confidence

At its core, anxious attachment is often tied to deep-seated beliefs that you aren’t worthy of love or that you’ll inevitably be abandoned. CBT helps you bring these beliefs to the surface and challenge them directly. By examining the evidence and reframing these negative thoughts, you can start to build a stronger, more compassionate sense of self. This process cultivates a quiet confidence that comes from within, rather than from someone else’s approval. As you consistently practice thinking and acting from a more secure place, you’ll find that your confidence grows, allowing you to show up more authentically in every area of your life. This personal growth is a key focus of individual counseling.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is CBT different from regular talk therapy? That's a great question. While many forms of therapy involve talking through your problems, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is more structured and skills-based. Think of it less like a conversation and more like a training session for your mind. Instead of focusing primarily on your past, we'll work together on what’s happening in your thoughts and behaviors right now. You’ll leave sessions with concrete tools, like thought records and behavioral experiments, that you can practice and use immediately to manage anxiety.

Can I really change my attachment style, or is this just who I am? Your attachment style is a learned pattern of relating to others, not a permanent personality trait. It developed as a smart strategy to get your needs met when you were young. While it might feel like a core part of you now, it is absolutely something you can change. CBT helps you build new neural pathways by intentionally choosing different thoughts and actions. With practice, you can create a new, more secure way of connecting that feels just as natural as the old one.

What if my partner is the one causing my anxiety? It's true that relationship dynamics involve two people, and a partner's behavior can certainly trigger anxiety. However, CBT focuses on what you have the power to change, which is your own response. You'll learn to identify the thoughts that get activated by your partner's actions and manage the intense feelings that follow. By changing your own reactions, you can often shift the entire dynamic of the relationship without your partner even being in the room.

How long does it usually take to see results with CBT? The timeline is different for everyone, but CBT is designed to be a relatively short-term therapy. Many people start to notice a greater awareness of their thought patterns within the first few sessions. Feeling a real shift in your emotional state and behaviors often happens with consistent weekly work over a few months. The key is practice; the more you apply the skills you learn between sessions, the more quickly you'll build momentum and create lasting change.

Do I have to talk about my childhood a lot? While your therapist will want some context about your background, CBT doesn't require a deep dive into your childhood in the way some other therapies do. The primary focus is on the here and now: the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are causing you distress today. We look at the past to understand how certain beliefs were formed, but the bulk of our work will be on developing practical skills to build a better present and future.