A Case Study
This recording is Part 2 of a webinar by Debbie Featherstone for Tinnitus UK. Length: just under 16 minutes. Please turn on closed captions if you need them
More Case Studies are currently in development 2024-5
About the Neuroscience, Brain Plasticity and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
There are around 86 billion neurons in the brain, organised to fire in patterns (neural pathways) that produce what we experience, moment by moment. Their purpose is to process information and it's the processed information that gives us what we experience.
Neurons that fire together, wire together through repetition, resulting in processed information repeating over and over. This all works to our benefit until what we experience is unpleasant.
Firing patterns of neurons (neural pathways) don't differentiate between an actual experience and an imagined experience, so when we imagine a pleasant experience, the patterns produced are the same as if we were having the actual pleasant experience.
The downside is that firing patterns (neural pathways) work in the same way when we have - or imagine - an unpleasant experience. Something called "Cognitive Bias" kicks in - for good reason, as our brains are wired first and foremost for survival. What we know we know – we cannot “un-know” it. Whatever is going on around us we view through our own window of Cognitive Bias. Consciously and unconsciously, we persistently seek out that which confirms what we know (Confirmation Bias), ignoring to the point of not even noticing there may be alternatives. This is how we end up going down the rabbit hole of suffering, and we perpetuate suffering through multiple means, one of the most common being the repeated use of Cognitive Distortions, for example:
- Predicting the future
- All or nothing thinking
- Maximising the negative, minimising the positive
- Emotional reasoning
- Self and other blaming
Fortunately, brain plasticity gives us the ability to change old firing patterns in to NEW firing patterns of neurons. The more FLEXIBLE we allow our mind (mindset) to be, the more EFFECTIVELY we make use of brain plasticity, precisely what CBT4T enables you to do.