Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is one of the most researched and effective forms of psychotherapy. Learn to identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviors that keep you stuck, developing practical skills you can use for the rest of your life.

Understanding Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on the principle that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected. The way we think about a situation affects how we feel emotionally, which in turn influences our behavior. When we’re stuck in negative thought patterns, we end up in cycles that maintain depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges.

CBT doesn’t assume positive thinking will solve everything. Instead, it helps you develop balanced, realistic thinking that acknowledges difficulties while not catastrophizing or assuming the worst. You learn to question automatic negative thoughts and replace them with more accurate, helpful perspectives.

Unlike some forms of therapy that focus extensively on the past, CBT is present-focused and goal-oriented. While we acknowledge how past experiences shaped your current patterns, the emphasis is on developing skills and strategies you can use right now to feel better and function more effectively.

The CBT Thought-Feeling-Behavior Connection

Situation

Something happens (ex: friend doesn’t respond to text)

Automatic Thought

“They’re mad at me. Nobody likes me.”

Feeling

Anxiety, sadness, rejection

Behavior

Withdraw, don’t reach out, assume the worst

Core CBT Techniques

Cognitive Restructuring

Learn to identify cognitive distortions such as:

  • All-or-Nothing Thinking: Seeing things in black and white categories without acknowledging middle ground.
  • Catastrophizing: Assuming the worst possible outcome will definitely happen.
  • Mind Reading: Believing you know what others are thinking without evidence.
  • Should Statements: Using “should” and “must” that create guilt and pressure.
  • Emotional Reasoning: Believing something is true because it feels true.

Behavioral Activation

When you’re depressed, you withdraw from activities, which makes depression worse. Behavioral activation breaks this cycle by gradually reintroducing meaningful activities and monitoring how engagement affects your mood.

Exposure Therapy

Systematically and gradually confront feared situations, learning that anxiety naturally decreases and feared outcomes rarely occur. This is particularly effective for anxiety disorders and phobias.

Problem-Solving Skills

Learn structured approaches to tackle life problems:

  • Define the problem clearly
  • Brainstorm potential solutions without judging
  • Evaluate pros and cons of each option
  • Choose and implement a solution
  • Evaluate the outcome and adjust as needed

Depression

Challenge negative thinking patterns, increase engagement in meaningful activities, and develop skills to prevent relapse.

Anxiety Disorders

Identify and challenge anxious thoughts, use exposure to reduce avoidance, and learn relaxation techniques for managing physical symptoms.

OCD

Use exposure and response prevention to break compulsive patterns and reduce the power of intrusive thoughts.

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

CBT provides concrete, practical skills that create lasting change. You’ll learn tools you can use long after therapy ends, making you your own therapist. Whether you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, or other challenges, CBT offers an evidence-based path forward that’s been proven effective for millions of people.

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Substance Abuse Counseling

Substance Abuse Counseling

Recovery from substance use is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone. Our compassionate, evidence-based substance abuse counseling helps you understand the roots of addiction, develop healthier coping strategies, and build a life worth staying sober for.

Understanding Substance Use and Addiction

Addiction is not a moral failing or a lack of willpower. It’s a complex condition that involves changes in brain chemistry, learned patterns, emotional regulation difficulties, and often trauma or mental health challenges. Substances initially provide relief from pain, anxiety, depression, or other difficult feelings, but over time they create their own problems while the original issues remain unaddressed.

You might notice needing more of the substance to achieve the same effect, experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you try to stop, spending increasing amounts of time obtaining or using substances, continuing use despite negative consequences to health, relationships, or work, unsuccessful attempts to cut down or quit, or giving up activities you once enjoyed because of substance use.

These patterns indicate your relationship with substances has become problematic and professional support can help you break free.

Our Approach to Recovery

Individual Counseling

One-on-one sessions to explore the underlying causes of substance use, identify triggers, develop coping strategies, and address co-occurring mental health conditions.

Relapse Prevention

Learn to recognize warning signs, develop a personalized relapse prevention plan, and build skills to navigate high-risk situations without returning to substance use.

Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Address both addiction and co-occurring mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, or bipolar disorder that often fuel substance use.

Family Support

Help family members understand addiction, establish healthy boundaries, and learn how to support your recovery without enabling harmful behaviors.

The Path to Recovery

Recovery is a journey, not a destination. We meet you wherever you are in that journey, whether you’re considering making a change, working toward sobriety, or maintaining long-term recovery.

Assessment and Treatment Planning

We begin with a comprehensive assessment of your substance use patterns, mental health, physical health, and life circumstances. Together, we develop a personalized treatment plan that addresses your unique needs and goals.

Evidence-Based Interventions

We utilize proven therapeutic approaches including:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Identify and change thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to substance use.
  • Motivational Interviewing: Explore ambivalence about change and strengthen internal motivation for recovery.
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Build skills for emotional regulation and distress tolerance without turning to substances.
  • Trauma-Focused Therapy: Address underlying trauma that often drives addictive behaviors.
  • 12-Step Facilitation: Support engagement with mutual aid groups like AA or NA if desired.

Building a Meaningful Life

Sustainable recovery requires more than just stopping substance use. It involves creating a life where substances are no longer needed or wanted. We help you:

  • Develop healthy coping mechanisms for stress and difficult emotions
  • Repair and build meaningful relationships
  • Find purpose and activities that bring genuine fulfillment
  • Address shame and rebuild self-worth
  • Create structure and routines that support sobriety

Recovery Starts Here

You don’t have to hit rock bottom to deserve help, and you don’t have to have all the answers before starting treatment. Whether you’re struggling with alcohol, drugs, or other substances, whether this is your first attempt at recovery or you’ve relapsed many times, support is available. Recovery is possible, and a different life is waiting for you.

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Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy isn’t what you’ve seen in movies. It’s a powerful therapeutic tool that accesses your subconscious mind to create meaningful change in behaviors, beliefs, and emotional patterns that feel stuck or resistant to traditional talk therapy.

What Is Clinical Hypnotherapy?

Clinical hypnotherapy uses guided relaxation and focused attention to help you enter a state of heightened awareness and concentration, often called a trance state. In this state, you’re deeply relaxed but fully conscious and in control. You can’t be made to do anything against your will, and you’ll remember everything that happens during the session.

Think of hypnosis as creating a direct pathway to communicate with the part of your mind that runs automatic patterns, emotional responses, and deeply held beliefs. This is where habits, fears, and self-limiting beliefs live, and it’s also where profound change can happen.

Hypnotherapy is recognized by major medical organizations as an effective treatment for various conditions. The American Psychological Association and American Medical Association acknowledge its therapeutic value when practiced by trained professionals.

Breaking Unwanted Habits

Address smoking, nail-biting, procrastination, or other automatic behaviors by reprogramming subconscious patterns that drive these actions.

Managing Anxiety & Phobias

Reduce anxiety, overcome specific phobias, and calm your nervous system through deep relaxation and positive suggestion work.

Pain Management

Use your mind’s natural ability to modulate pain perception, helping with chronic pain conditions and medical procedures.

How Hypnotherapy Sessions Work

A typical hypnotherapy session involves several phases designed to help you access and work with your subconscious mind safely and effectively.

The Hypnotherapy Process:

  • Pre-Talk and Goal Setting: We discuss what you want to achieve and clear up any misconceptions about hypnosis.
  • Induction: Through guided relaxation techniques, you enter a comfortable trance state where your conscious mind quiets and your subconscious becomes more receptive.
  • Deepening: We deepen the trance state using imagery, counting, or other techniques that enhance your focus and receptivity.
  • Therapeutic Work: This is where change happens through suggestion, visualization, regression, parts therapy, or other hypnotic interventions tailored to your goals.
  • Emergence: You’re gently guided back to full waking consciousness, typically feeling relaxed and refreshed.
  • Processing: We discuss your experience and any insights that emerged during the session.

What Hypnotherapy Can Help With:

  • Smoking cessation and substance use
  • Weight management and eating behaviors
  • Anxiety, stress, and panic attacks
  • Phobias and fears (flying, public speaking, medical procedures)
  • Sleep disorders and insomnia
  • Chronic pain management
  • Performance enhancement (sports, academics, public speaking)
  • Confidence and self-esteem issues
  • Trauma processing and PTSD symptoms

Experience the Power of Your Mind

Your subconscious mind is incredibly powerful, holding both the patterns that limit you and the resources to overcome them. Hypnotherapy provides a bridge to access this inner wisdom and create lasting change. Whether you’re breaking a habit, managing pain, or overcoming a fear, hypnotherapy offers a path forward that feels natural and aligned with who you truly are.

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Brynn Robles

Brynn Robles

CO Therapist

Licensed in: CO

License: LPC

Brynn is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the State of CO. She received her Bachelor of Science in human services from Metropolitan State University, and her Master of Arts in school counseling and clinical counseling from the University of Northern Colorado. She has spent 16 years in the mental health field working with diverse populations. Brynn places a big emphasis on family systems, not just as we view our families in the present moment, but also how we have come to develop our own family systems throughout our childhood. Specializing in teens and young adults has given her the ability to see how needs change with time and how adaptations can be made along the way to better serve adulthood. She focuses on the most significant relationships, whether that be intimate partnerships, or otherwise, in order to use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), as well as solutions-focused modalities to help clients better understand how beliefs, perspectives, and thoughts could potentially be limiting them from accomplishing their goals. The therapeutic relationship is everything to Brynn, so she is incredibly motivated to align, connect, and identify strengths as the organic exploration of getting to the best version of themselves takes place.

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Dr. Meaghan Rice

Dr. Meaghan Rice

Founder

Licensed in: CO, AZ, OR, MS, GA, IA

License: Nationally Certified Supervisor, LPC

The driving force behind Better Lives Building Tribes is Dr Meaghan Rice. Dr. Rice has been helping people change their lives for over ten years. Her method is both insightful and compassionate. Her journey began with a deep insight that our challenges and victories may reveal important truths about who we are. Dr. Rice found that signals from our social networks can sometimes hold the key to personal development. She used this knowledge to create a new therapy that emphasizes group behaviors and feedback over individual symptoms. Her clients can address the root causes of their issues, achieving significant life improvements from her holistic approach. Dr. Rice's dedication to this method is a result of her personal experiences overcoming obstacles in life and picking up on cues from those around her.

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