You have heard the acronym. Maybe your family doctor said it, maybe a friend mentioned it, maybe it turned up in the first three results when you went looking. If you have been typing CBT therapy Edmonton into a search bar and you still cannot picture what would actually happen if you booked, that is fair. Most explanations of it are written in clinical language.
I am Carly Colasimone, MA, a Registered Psychologist (Alberta). I see adults in person in Edmonton and by video anywhere in the province, including Calgary. Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the approaches I draw on. It is not a separate service, and it is not a lecture about thinking positively. It is a practical way of working with the thoughts that fire right before you do something you did not mean to do.
What CBT is, without the jargon
Cognitive behavioural therapy starts from one plain idea. What you think, how you feel, and what you do are hooked together. Move one and the other two shift.
The sequence usually runs like this. Someone asks you for something. A thought arrives fast, and it sounds like a fact rather than a thought. The feeling lands right behind it, a tightness in the chest. Then the behaviour. You say yes.
That thought went by so quickly you probably never registered it as a thought at all. CBT is the work of slowing that sequence down enough to see it, checking whether the thought holds up, and then trying something different on purpose.
What a session actually looks like
The first session is mostly me listening. You tell me what brought you in and what you want to be different. I ask when the pattern shows up, how long it has been running, and what you have already tried. There is no test to pass and nothing you need to prepare.
By the end of the first session or two, you and I pick a target. Not "feel better", which is too big to work with. Something you could actually notice happening, like getting through a disagreement without apologizing for existing, or stopping the automatic yes.
After that, sessions settle into a shape. You bring what has happened since last time. You and I take one moment and slow it right down, usually the hardest one. What was the situation. What went through your mind. What did you feel, and what did you do. Then the useful question. Is that thought accurate, and is there another way to read what happened.
Then you leave with one specific thing to try.
Sessions run 50 or 80 minutes.
About that word "homework"
Homework is a poor word for it. It sounds like an assignment with a grade attached.
What it really means is that the hour is not where your life changes. Your life changes on a Tuesday afternoon when the request lands and you do something different with it. The session is where you work out what to try. The week is where you try it.
So the between-session piece is usually small. Catch the thought and write it down. Say one sentence you rehearsed. Delay an answer by a day. Do the thing you have been circling and see what the evening feels like afterwards.
It is not busywork, and it is not marked. If you come back having done none of it, that is useful information too, and often the most interesting thing in the room. Avoidance showing up between sessions is the pattern itself, not a failure of effort.
I would rather you do one small thing you actually did than agree to five you did not.
What CBT tends to be good for
CBT is one of the most studied talking therapies, and it suits some problems better than others.
It tends to suit problems where a thought is running on repeat, where worry or avoidance is doing most of the driving, and where there is something specific to test between sessions.
It also suits people who want structure. If you like knowing what you are working on and why, and you want something concrete to carry into the week, CBT gives you that. It moves.
Where CBT is not the whole answer
I would rather be straight about the limits than oversell one approach.
CBT works on thoughts you can get hold of. Not everything sits at that level. If you can describe your feelings accurately and still cannot feel them, arguing with the thought will not get you far. That is where client-centred work does more.
If the pattern is tied to something that happened to you, and your body reacts well before any thought forms, CBT on its own can feel like filling in paperwork about a fire. That is where EMDR fits better.
CBT also is not the right choice if what you want is room to be heard without a plan attached. That is a reasonable thing to want. Say it in the first call so you get the right thing.
One more limit is worth naming. CBT does not make an unfair situation reasonable. If a workplace is genuinely unfair, or a relationship is genuinely unkind, the answer is not to reframe the thought. Sometimes the thought is accurate, and the real work is deciding what you are going to do about it.
How I actually use it
I do not run CBT as a fixed protocol.
In practice I reach for the CBT tools when there is a thought to get hold of, and I move to other approaches when there is not. Most sessions end up a blend. You are not choosing a lane when you book, and you do not need to arrive knowing which approach you want. Working that out is my job.
There is more detail on my CBT therapy page, and you can see the other approaches I draw on if you want the full picture before you call.
The thought that fires right before you say yes
Here is where CBT earns its place in my practice.
Most of my work is with adults who cannot say no. Assertiveness, boundaries, people-pleasing. Capable people who are good at reading a room, good at smoothing things over, and quietly worn out by it.
That pattern has a thought buried in it, and the thought moves fast. If I say no, they will be upset. If they are upset, something bad happens. So it is easier to just do it.
You will rarely catch it in words. You will catch the yes already out of your mouth and wonder where it came from.
This is exactly the material CBT handles well. The thought is specific. It repeats. It shows up in situations you can name. Best of all, it makes a prediction, and predictions can be checked. What did you expect would happen when you said no, and what actually happened. Looking at the distance between those two answers, deliberately, over and over, is what starts to loosen the reflex.
The behavioural half matters just as much as the thinking half. You practise the small no. You keep it short. You sit with the discomfort afterwards without taking it back. That is CBT doing what it does best, one deliberate action at a time.
If that is the part you recognized, I wrote a longer piece on it: how to stop being a people-pleaser. And Speak Up Skills is the program I built for adults living inside this exact pattern.
There is more on assertiveness and boundaries in my resources library.
The practical bits
Sessions are $220 for 50 minutes and $330 for 80 minutes. A sliding scale is available on request, so please ask. I do not offer direct billing.
I see adults only. In person in Edmonton at 9811 34 Ave. NW, inside Chiropractic Plus & Wellness, with parking on site. By video anywhere in Alberta, including Calgary.
I am a Registered Psychologist in Alberta, and you can look up any psychologist on the public register held by the College of Alberta Psychologists.
The first consultation is free and takes 15 minutes. You tell me what is going on. I tell you honestly whether I am the right fit, and if I am not, I will say so. Reach me at 780-952-0091 or colasimonecounselling@gmail.com, or use my contact page.
If you need support right now
Therapy is not the right tool in a crisis, and waiting for an appointment is not a plan.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. The Distress Line in Edmonton is 780-482-4357. You can also call or text 988 at any time. More options are on my crisis support page.
One last thing
CBT is not about thinking positively. Nobody talks themselves into believing something they know is not true, and I would not ask you to.
It is about accuracy. The thoughts that run your day were learned somewhere, usually a long time ago, and most of them have never been checked. Checking them is ordinary work. It is not mystical and it is not instant, but it is doable, and you do not have to do it on your own.