Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Cognitive behavior therapy is a practical, goal-oriented therapy. Ask yourself these questions to see if it might be for you.

• Do you feel stuck in cycles of worry, doubt, or negative thinking that you can’t seem to break?
• Do your thoughts sometimes spiral into the worst-case scenario, even when nothing is wrong?
• Do you find yourself avoiding situations out of fear they’ll be overwhelming?
• Do you wish you had clear, practical tools to handle anxiety or OCD instead of feeling trapped by them?

If these questions sound familiar, CBT may be the right approach for you. It’s one of the most effective therapies available, backed by decades of research showing real and lasting results. Finding a certified CBT therapist who specializes in anxiety and OCD can be hard. Laura Johnson, LMFT, LPCC, can provide you with cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety and OCD if you live anywhere in California including San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is one of the most widely studied and proven approaches in mental health. It’s based on the simple but powerful idea that your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected: the way you interpret situations affects how you feel, and how you feel shapes what you do.

In CBT, you’ll learn to:

• Recognize patterns that fuel anxiety, depression, or OCD.
• Understand how behaviors like avoiding, checking, or over-preparing keep the problem alive.
• Develop practical strategies to shift both your thinking and your actions so you can break free from the cycle.

Unlike traditional talk therapy, CBT is structured, active, and goal-oriented. Each session is focused on building tools you can immediately apply to your daily life—so you’re not just gaining insight, you’re creating real change.

CBT works by interrupting the cycles that keep you stuck. Here’s how the process typically unfolds:

• Identify the cycle. Together we map out how your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence each other. For example: “My heart races → I think I’m having a heart attack → I panic → I avoid exercising.” Once you see the cycle, you can begin to change it.
• Spot distortions. You’ll learn to notice “thinking traps” like catastrophizing or mind reading that make situations feel more dangerous or hopeless than they really are.
• Test your thoughts. Instead of accepting anxious or self-critical thoughts as facts, you’ll examine the evidence and build more balanced perspectives.
• Change behaviors. We’ll reduce unhelpful habits like avoidance, checking, or reassurance-seeking. Often this includes exposure therapy—facing fears in gradual steps until they lose their power.
• Build long-term skills. You’ll learn strategies like problem-solving, relaxation, mindfulness, and thought records that keep progress going long after therapy ends.

CBT is collaborative—you and your therapist work as a team. You bring in your real-life challenges, and we experiment with strategies until you find what truly works. Clients often say CBT feels empowering because it gives them concrete tools and a sense of control they haven’t felt in years.

Thinking traps (cognitive distortions) are automatic, unhelpful ways of thinking that fuel anxiety and depression. CBT gives you practical tools to catch these traps in real time and replace them with more balanced, helpful ways of thinking. 

Some common thinking traps are: 

I’m one of the few therapists in California who is a Certified Cognitive Behavior Therapist—meaning I’ve completed advanced training and credentialing to deliver CBT at the highest professional standard. Many therapists use CBT-inspired techniques, but few have earned full certification through rigorous evaluation and supervision. 

I’m also an Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, which allows me to go deeper when long-standing patterns keep problems from fully resolving. This rare combination means you’ll get practical, evidence-based CBT tools for immediate progress—and Schema Therapy when deeper transformation is needed.