One of the strongest evidence bases in modern psychology — brief, structured, with measurable outcomes. Here is what it is, what is proven, whose standards I follow, and how CBT is recognised in Ukraine.
At the core of CBT is a simple idea: our thoughts, emotions, bodily reactions and behaviour are interconnected. By changing habitual patterns of thinking and acting, we change how we feel. This is not "positive thinking" — it is work with specific mechanisms.
A clear plan and goals, focused on the present. Every session has structure — you always know why and where we are going.
Results in a limited number of sessions, not over years. The goal is not to attend forever, but to teach you to help yourself.
Techniques are tested in research, not improvised. CBT's effectiveness is backed by hundreds of clinical trials.
You and the specialist are a team. The skills you learn stay with you for good, independent of therapy.
Per NICE and APA guidelines, CBT is a first-line treatment for depression, anxiety disorders, panic, phobias, OCD and PTSD; it is also recommended for psychotic and eating disorders. It works for adults, adolescents and children.
CBT is one of the leading evidence-based psychotherapies in Ukraine. Building an accessible mental-health system is set out in the Concept to 2030 and the action plan approved by Cabinet of Ministers Decree No. 572-r of 21 June 2024, and is delivered through the national "Ty yak?" programme. Since 2025 mental-health services are part of the Medical Guarantees Programme.
Write on Telegram @psyfrolov or via Mindly. The first meeting is an assessment of your request: what is happening, for how long, what you want. No pressure, full confidentiality.
Together we build a CBT model of your situation: how thoughts, emotions, bodily reactions and behaviour connect. We set measurable goals — the foundation of the protocol per Beck Institute standards.
Structured sessions following an evidence-based CBT protocol. Between meetings — practical tasks; progress is tracked with measurable outcomes, as NICE and APA recommend.
Self-regulation skills become your own. A dedicated protocol phase — relapse prevention — so results hold even after therapy ends.
Couples come with different requests: conflict and communication, trust and its loss, infidelity and recovery after it, jealousy, intimacy, parenting, money and roles, daily life, relocation and separation crises, decisions about divorce or breaking up, support through separation and a civil ending of the relationship. The method, however, is one — evidence-based. Below are the branches I work from and exactly what is taken from each.
Cognitive Behavioral Couple Therapy (CBCT) is the couples form of cognitive behavioural therapy. Its authors are Norman Epstein and Donald Baucom. It is an adaptation of classic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), founded by Aaron Temkin Beck, Doctor of Medicine, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). This is the core framework of all my work with couples, whatever the presenting request.
What is taken: the cognitive model applied to a dyad — emotion and action are driven not by the event itself but by each partner's interpretation of it; work with each partner's automatic thoughts separately; testing thoughts against facts rather than persuading — a simplified couples form of cognitive restructuring, that is, the rebuilding of distorted thoughts; behavioral agreements as the working instrument of change.
Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) was developed by Andrew Christensen. This branch adds a second pillar alongside change — acceptance: not every difference between two people can be "fixed"; some must be tolerated without escalation.
What is taken: analysis of recurring interaction patterns, including the most documented pattern in the literature — demand–withdraw, where one partner presses and demands while the other shuts down and withdraws; distinguishing what is open to change from what calls for acceptance; working with how a couple reacts to their differences, not only with the differences themselves.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) was developed by Sue Johnson. This branch works with what sits underneath conflict: the need for a secure emotional bond. It is used as a containing frame within which the tools of cognitive behavioural therapy remain. The frames are compatible — this is correct integrative practice, not eclecticism.
What is taken: the concept of the negative interaction cycle; externalization of the problem — placing it outside the couple on the principle "the couple against the cycle, not against each other"; attention to the emotion beneath the reaction: irritation often covers fear of loss or helplessness, and naming that emotion defuses mutual blame and returns the conversation to constructive ground.
John Mordechai Gottman, Doctor of Philosophy, founder of the Gottman Institute (USA), is the author of decades of longitudinal — that is, multi-year — observation of couples. What is taken from this work are not "tips" but verified empirical benchmarks.
What is taken: prognostic markers — notably HOW a couple tells the story of their beginning: this measure predicts outcome better than the content of their conflicts; the phenomenon of flooding — under high physiological arousal, when the pulse exceeds roughly 100 beats per minute, constructive dialogue is physiologically impossible and the nervous system needs 20–40 minutes to return to baseline, so a pause is a necessity rather than a whim; the standard of a mandatory return to the conversation after the pause, since a pause without return turns into avoidance.
The specific tools of a session are chosen to fit the couple's request, but each has a source.
The ABC model (Activating event — Beliefs — Consequences) of Albert Ellis and Aaron Temkin Beck, together with chain analysis — a frame-by-frame reconstruction of an episode: event → thought → emotion → behaviour, looped for both partners.
The time-out protocol — a structured pause with a mandatory return to the conversation; it comes from behavioural couples therapy and the research of John Gottman.
Enactment — a technique of structural family therapy by Salvador Minuchin, also widely used in Emotionally Focused Therapy: the couple practises new communication in the session itself rather than discussing it in theory.
Scaling questions from Motivational Interviewing (MI), developed by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, and from Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT): used to work with partners' differing motivation without pressure.
This layer does not depend on the request and applies to every piece of couples work.
Safety screening at the start — the standard of a couples intake (the initial assessment meeting) under the guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA): active violence in the relationship is a contraindication to the couples format; in that case work proceeds individually only.
Risk screening, including suicidality, is a mandatory element of clinical intake under mhGAP — the Mental Health Gap Action Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) — and under the protocol of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Where indicated, validated questionnaires are used, including the PHQ-9 — Patient Health Questionnaire-9, a nine-item depression screening tool — along with referral to a physician.
Progress monitoring — an evidence-based practice standard of the American Psychological Association: checkpoints with regular measurement, because work without measuring movement is not evidence-based.
Duration guide — 8–20 sessions under the clinical guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), United Kingdom, on behavioural couples therapy; the actual range is set by the request and the couple's dynamics.
The principle: the request determines which tools are used and in what order — it does not change the foundation. The framework is always cognitive behavioural (Cognitive Behavioral Couple Therapy); acceptance and patterns come from Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy; the emotional cycle from Emotionally Focused Therapy; empirical benchmarks from the research of John Gottman; safety and quality from the American Psychological Association, the World Health Organization mhGAP programme and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. No eclecticism without justification: every element has a protocol source.
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