As a Cognitive Therapist, Dorothy teaches her clients how to apply Cognitive Therapy principles in order to create a better understanding of their self, and to facilitate change. What makes Cognitive Therapy so effective is the fact that clients are able to learn how to identify their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and physical reactions within the context of their environment. Clients learn to test the meaning and usefulness of various thoughts they have during the day and to change the thinking patterns that keep them locked into dysfunctional moods, behaviors, or relationship interactions. In addition, they learn how to make life changes when their thoughts are alerting them to problems that need to be solved.
Developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck in the late 50s, today Cognitive Therapy is one of the most successful and widely practiced psychotherapies in the world. In the past several decades, cognitive therapy has been successfully used to help clients with depression, panic disorder, phobias, anxiety, anger, stress-related disorders, relationship problems, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and many of the other difficulties that bring people to therapy.