What we help with on CBT Poland Center

Anxiety, panic attacks, phobias

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What happens in anxiety

Anxiety is useful in itself: it mobilises the body ahead of a real threat. It becomes a problem when it switches on without a threat, does not switch off in time, or is triggered by your own thoughts.

Depression and loss of energy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

How depression works

In depression a person stops doing the things that used to bring pleasure and a sense of meaning. The logic is understandable: there is no energy, there will be no joy, so why start. But it is precisely the withdrawal from activity that deprives the brain of its sources of reinforcement — and the mood falls further. A loop forms: fewer actions → worse mood → fewer actions still.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Why OCD is so persistent

An intrusive thought is frightening. To reduce the anxiety, a person performs a ritual — checks, washes, repeats a phrase, seeks reassurance from those close to them. The anxiety does subside, but not for long, and the brain learns: “anxiety is dangerous, the ritual saves me.” Next time the thought comes back stronger, and the ritual has to be carried out for longer.

Trauma and PTSD

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What a traumatic reaction is

With an ordinary memory we know the event is in the past. With a traumatic one the memory has not been “filed” in the normal way: it comes back in fragments — images, sounds, bodily sensations — and is experienced as happening now.

Eating disorders

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What this is really about

Eating disorders are rarely “about food”. Restriction, binge eating and weight control usually serve another function: they give a sense of being in control when everything else is uncontrollable, or they are a way of coping with emotions that are otherwise unbearable.

Addictive behaviour

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Why “just stopping” does not work

Addictive behaviour becomes established as an automatic reaction: a particular situation, emotion or time of day triggers the craving, the craving leads to the action, the action brings quick relief. This link forms independently of decisions and intentions — which is why resolve does not cancel it.

Difficulties in relationships

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What we look for first

Not who is to blame. In almost any entrenched conflict there is a cycle: one person makes a move, the other responds, the first reacts to the response — and both end up at a familiar point. Each of them behaves in a way that is understandable and explicable. What changes is not “who is right” but the cycle itself.

Moving, emigration, adaptation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Why it gets harder after moving, not easier

Often the hardest period comes not in the first months but later. While urgent tasks are being dealt with — documents, housing, work, school — the body runs on mobilisation. When the acute phase ends, what was postponed arrives: grief for the loss of a familiar life, exhaustion, loss of meaning.