Approach · Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy starts from a simple observation: what you think, what you feel and what you do keep feeding each other. Athena draws on CBT inside a systemic frame, which adds a fourth piece: the relationships that keep reinforcing the loop.
Individual 60 Minutes · $200 · Couples or Family 60 Minutes · $250
The Basics
Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviors
CBT is one of the most widely used ways of working in therapy, and its core idea is practical. A situation happens. You make an interpretation of it, often so quickly you do not notice making one. That interpretation produces a feeling, and the feeling pushes you toward a behavior. The behavior then shapes what happens next, which tends to confirm the original interpretation. Round and round it goes.
Consider an unanswered text. One interpretation is that the other person is busy. Another is that they are annoyed with you. The second one produces a very different evening: rereading the message, checking your phone, maybe sending a follow-up you regret. None of that is irrational. It is a loop that has learned to run on its own, and CBT gives you ways to slow it down, notice the interpretation, test it against what you actually know, and choose a different response.
The behavioral side matters just as much. Avoiding something that makes you anxious brings immediate relief, which teaches your nervous system that avoidance was necessary. Withdrawing when you feel low saves energy today and makes tomorrow a little emptier. Small, deliberate changes in behavior are often where the loop is easiest to interrupt.
The Systemic Part
The Relationships That Reinforce the Loop
Athena is a licensed marriage and family therapist and works systemically, so CBT is never only about what happens inside one head. Thoughts and behaviors are shaped and maintained by the people around you. A partner who always reassures you keeps the worry from being tested. A parent who steps in whenever a teenager struggles removes the discomfort and removes the practice. A household where nobody mentions a problem teaches everyone that it cannot be mentioned.
The same logic applies between people. In a couple, each partner is constantly interpreting the other. A sigh becomes criticism, a late arrival becomes indifference, and each reaction invites the next one. Looking at those interpretations together, in the room, is one of the most direct ways CBT fits into couples and family work.
Bringing the relational pieces into view does not mean blaming anyone. It means there are more places to make a change, and that a change is easier to hold when the people around you understand what you are trying to do.
The Work
Practical Work Between Sessions
Part of what distinguishes CBT is that much of the change happens between sessions. The work is agreed together and kept small enough to actually try. It might mean noting the thought that shows up right before a familiar reaction. It might mean choosing one situation you have been avoiding and approaching it in a manageable step. It might mean tracking sleep, energy or mood for a week so the pattern can be looked at with real information rather than memory.
Sessions then look at what happened. Not in general terms, but in detail: what the situation was, what you told yourself, what you did, and what followed. Specific episodes can be worked with in a way that general impressions cannot. Over time you get faster at noticing the loop while it is happening rather than afterward.
The aim is not to replace every difficult thought with a cheerful one. It is to hold your interpretations a little more loosely, and to have more than one option when an old pattern starts.
Where It Fits
Anxiety, Depression and ADHD
CBT ideas are especially useful for anxiety, where worry and avoidance feed each other, and for depression, where withdrawal and harsh self-talk tend to deepen the low mood they come from. With ADHD, the emphasis is often practical: building routines and external supports, and addressing the discouraged thinking that years of friction can leave behind. Athena worked for three years under a psychiatrist, where she ran a group for ADHD patients.
Most CBT work here happens in individual therapy, though the same tools are used in couples counseling and family sessions. CBT sits alongside the other ways of working described on the approach page, and which one leads depends on what is actually in front of her.
Athena is not a prescriber. Medication questions belong with your physician or a psychiatrist, and therapy continues alongside whatever you decide with them.
Common Questions
CBT Questions
- Is this a structured CBT program?
- No. Athena draws on CBT as one of several ways of working rather than running a fixed protocol. CBT tools are used when they fit what is in front of her, alongside the systemic view of the relationships around the problem.
- Will there be homework?
- Often, yes, though it is agreed together rather than assigned. Between-session work is usually small and specific: noticing a thought when it shows up, trying one behavior differently, or tracking a pattern for a week so it can be looked at in the next session.
- Can CBT be used in couples or family sessions?
- Yes. The same ideas apply to what happens between people: the interpretation one person makes of another's behavior, and the reaction that follows. Couples sessions are 60 minutes at $250 and individual sessions are 60 minutes at $200.
Start With the Contact Form
Start with a short note about what brings you in. Send the contact form before anything is scheduled.