Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based talking treatment that is highly effective for helping children, teens and adults to overcome their anxiety problems.

CBT treatment for anxiety and OCD typically focuses on supporting the person to face their fears through exposure therapy, leading to changes in their unhelpful thinking patterns and anxious behaviours. CBT for young people usually requires family involvement to reinforce positive changes at home, and to ensure long-lasting treatment results.

Psychologists at CAO have extensive training and experience in delivering CBT, and have supported many individuals and families through this treatment process. At CAO, we provide the following innovative CBT interventions:

Exposure with Response Prevention for OCD

Exposure with response prevention, or E/RP, is an evidence-based approach for treating OCD. With therapist support, the person is gradually exposed to feared situations while preventing their usual OCD habits. E/RP should be completed both in-session and at home, and can be delivered in a standard or intensive treatment format.

Inference-Based Cognitive Therapy for OCD

Inference-based cognitive therapy, or ICBT, is a treatment for OCD that targets obsessional doubts (e.g., “What if the door knob is contaminated?“) and the reasoning processes that make these obsessions feel real, when they are false. Research has shown that ICBT is an effective alternative to E/RP for treating OCD.

One Session Treatment for Specific Phobias

One session treatment, or OST, is a rapid and effective treatment for specific phobias, such as animal phobias, needle phobias, and environmental phobias. As the name suggests, treatment is completed in a single session, lasting up to 3 hours. OST utilises targeted behavioural challenges to overcome fears and achieve treatment goals quickly.

Habit Reversal Training for Tics and BFRBs

Habit reversal training, or HRT, is a behavioural approach to reducing repetitive behaviours such as tics and body-focussed repetitive behaviours (BFRBs; e.g., hair pulling and skin picking). Repetitive behaviours are reduced by making environmental changes and developing “competing responses” that are incompatible with the behaviour.