# Cognitive Behavioral Therapy > CBT is the most-studied talking therapy there is: structured, practical and time-limited. It works on the loop between what you think, what you feel and what you do, one specific situation at a time. **Source:** https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/cognitive-behavioral-therapy **Practice:** Unique Minds Behavioral Health Services, LLC. Baltimore, MD: 6810 Park Heights Ave, Suite C6, Baltimore, MD 21215 · Washington, DC: 1402 North Capitol St NW, #1, Washington, DC 20002 · Delaware, OH: 1 W Winter St, Suite 211, Delaware, OH 43015 **Phone:** (443) 538-8400 **Clinically reviewed by:** Dr. Victorine (Vicky) Ngang, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, MSN, RN **Last reviewed:** 2026-08-11 ## Quick answer Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured, evidence-based talking therapy that helps you notice unhelpful thought patterns, test them against reality, and change the behaviors that keep problems going. Unique Minds offers CBT for adults and children across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio, in person at our Baltimore and Washington offices or by secure video. ## The idea behind it CBT starts from something simple: thoughts, feelings and behaviors feed each other. A thought ("I'll embarrass myself") produces a feeling (dread), the feeling produces a behavior (staying home), and the behavior quietly confirms the thought. Around it goes. According to the [National Institute of Mental Health](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/psychotherapies), CBT is one of the most extensively researched forms of psychotherapy, with strong evidence across anxiety, depression and a range of other conditions. CBT interrupts the loop at both ends. On the thinking side, you learn to catch the automatic thought, hold it up to the light, and ask what the evidence actually says. On the doing side, you run small, planned experiments (the phone call you have been avoiding, the party you leave early instead of skipping), and let reality argue with the prediction. ## Inside a session CBT sessions have a recognisable shape, and the structure is doing real work. It is what stops therapy becoming a weekly catch-up that never changes anything. - **An agenda, set together** in the first few minutes. What are we working on today? - **Reviewing last week's experiment.** What happened, what did you predict, what actually occurred? This is where most of the learning lands, and it is why the homework matters. - **The work itself**: usually one specific, recent situation, taken apart into what happened, what went through your mind, what you felt in your body, and what you then did. - **Testing the thought.** Not positive thinking: evidence. What supports this belief, what contradicts it, what would you say to someone you like who said it about themselves? - **Designing the next experiment.** Small, specific, and chosen by you: the phone call, the meeting question, the party you leave early instead of skipping. - **A summary and a plan**, so you leave knowing what you are doing before the next session. ## The two halves of the method **The cognitive half** works on thinking. You learn to catch the automatic thought, the one that arrives so fast it feels like perception rather than interpretation, and to notice the recurring distortions it tends to use: all-or-nothing judgements, catastrophising, mind reading, treating a feeling as proof, discounting anything that went well. Then you test it against evidence rather than argue with it. **The behavioural half** works on doing, and it is frequently the more powerful of the two. Its tools are concrete: **behavioural experiments** that put a prediction to an actual test; **behavioural activation** for depression, which schedules the activities the illness switched off and does not wait for motivation to return first; **exposure** for fear and avoidance; and **sleep and routine work** where those are part of the loop. Progress is tracked rather than assumed (briefly, session by session) which is what lets you see change while it is still too small to feel. ## What a course of CBT looks like here CBT at Unique Minds is structured and collaborative. Early sessions map the problem: where the loops are, what keeps them running, what you want to be different. From there, each session has an agenda you set together, and most end with something concrete to try before the next one. It pairs naturally with the rest of your care. If you are also in [medication management](/psychiatry-practices/medication-management), the two work in parallel, and your providers talk to each other, so you never have to be the messenger. ## Where it happens In person at our Baltimore and Washington, D.C. offices, or by secure video anywhere in Maryland and the District. Video CBT keeps the full structure (shared worksheets, weekly experiments, measurable progress) without the commute. ## Who this is for - Anxiety that argues its case convincingly, and wins more than it should. - Low mood that has settled in and taken your routines with it. - Thought spirals you can see happening but cannot seem to interrupt. - Sleep that broke and never quite mended. - Wanting a practical, skills-first therapy with a clear shape and an end. - Preferring homework you can use this week over open-ended talking. - Wanting to know whether it is working, from something other than a feeling. ## Conditions it helps with - [Anxiety Disorders](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments) - [Depression](https://www.uniquembhs.com/depression-treatment) - [Insomnia](https://www.uniquembhs.com/insomnia-treatment) - [OCD](https://www.uniquembhs.com/anxiety-disorders-treatments/obsessive-compulsive-disorder) - [Trauma & PTSD](https://www.uniquembhs.com/trauma-ptsd-treatment) ## Frequently asked questions ### What actually happens in a CBT session? You and your therapist pick a specific, recent situation and take it apart together: what happened, what went through your mind, what you felt, what you did. Then you test the thought against the evidence and plan a small experiment for the week. It is collaborative and practical. Closer to coaching than to lying on a couch. ### How long does CBT take? CBT is deliberately time-limited. Many courses run somewhere in the range of eight to twenty sessions, reviewed as you go. The plan is agreed with you at the start and adjusted based on how you are doing, not set by a timer. Some people come back later for a booster; that is normal. ### Is CBT enough on its own, or will I need medication too? Both alone and combined are common. For some conditions CBT by itself is a first-line treatment; for others, research supports pairing it with medication. Your psychiatric evaluation is where that gets decided: with you, based on what you are dealing with and what you prefer. ### Does CBT work over video? Yes. CBT translates well to telehealth: the structure, the worksheets and the between-session experiments all work the same way. We offer secure video sessions across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Ohio, and in-person sessions at our offices. ### What are cognitive distortions? The recurring shapes that unhelpful thinking takes, and learning to spot them is half of CBT's cognitive work. Common ones: all-or-nothing thinking, where anything short of perfect counts as failure; catastrophising, which runs every situation to its worst ending; mind reading, which assumes you know what others think of you; emotional reasoning, which treats a feeling as evidence; and discounting the positive, which files anything good as luck or an exception. ### Does CBT ignore the past? It focuses on the present, which is not the same thing. CBT is interested in what keeps a problem going now, because that is what can be changed now, but your history is where the beliefs came from, and no competent therapist will wave it away. If the past is the live issue rather than the backdrop, trauma-focused approaches may fit better, and that is a conversation to have at evaluation. ## Sources - Psychotherapies. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/psychotherapies ## Related pages - [Dialectical Behavior Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/dialectical-behavior-therapy) - [Exposure Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/exposure-therapy) - [Individual Therapy](https://www.uniquembhs.com/therapy-services/individual-therapy) --- This page is general health information, not medical advice. In a crisis, call or text 988 (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any hour, or call 911 in an emergency.