How does Rewiring Compare to CBT?

CBT vs Rewiring?

Shared Goals

Both Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Anxiety Rewiring aim to help clients gain freedom from distressing emotional patterns, particularly those rooted in fear, anxiety, or judgment. Both acknowledge that change is possible - not by suppressing emotion, but by interacting with it in a new way.

Client Experiences with CBT

CBT places the conscious mind and the reasoning system at the center of healing. Sessions are structured, focused on present-moment thought patterns, and often revolve around identifying, analyzing, and correcting cognitive distortions.

A typical CBT session might include:

  • Describing a recent episode of anxiety of conflict

  • Identifying thoughts associated with that moment

  • Evaluating those thoughts for logic, distortion, or learned patterns

  • Attempting to reframe (“What’s a more realistic or compassionate belief?”)

  • Assigning between-session tasks such as thought-tracking, journaling, or exposure activities

Client Takeaways in CBT

Clients often experience:

  • A sense of structure and purpose, particularly early on

  • Occasional frustration or pressure to get the “right” reframe

  • Emotional distance that feels helpful or incomplete, depending on the depth of the issue

CBT can succeed with with phobias, compulsive behaviors, or ruminative patterns. However, for trauma-rooted or hard-to-articulate experiences, some recipients of CBT sessions somtimes report a gap between understanding and resolution.

“I understood why I was anxious. I just couldn’t stop feeling it. I was great at the homework, but the pain was still there.”

If you identify with this statement, you might benefit from the Anxiety Rewiring modality.

Anxiety Rewiring

Client Experiences with Anxiety Rewiring

Anxiety Rewiring operates within the Reflective-Intuitive mind, or the Default Mode Network. Rather than relying on conscious reasoning or desensitization to percolate into the client’s internal systems of identity and emotional narrative, as is the case with CBT, AR invites internally sourced, spontaneous insight from those systems through guided inquiry.

An Anxiety Rewiring session will specifically include:

  • Identifying a target problematic emotional pattern

  • Revisiting an inciting moment for that pattern

  • Reducing your stress responses with imagined distance

  • Inviting clarity, compassion, and self-support

  • Gradually closing in on the root memory, gaining insight at every step

Client Takeaways in Anxiety Rewiring

Clients often experience:

  • A sense of structure and purpose throughout the Rewire process

  • Subtle but profound emotional shifts that require no cognitive override

  • Gained sense of groundedness

  • Emotional distance that creates safety to produce and assimilate constructive, healthy insight from oneself

Insights often emerge in units: statements, statement fragments, emotional textures, complex imagery, or ineffable impressions. Through repeated rounds of clarification and spatial safety, these intuitive responses are integrated into the clients conscious and emotional narratives while avoiding lymbic overwhelm.

“I didn’t argue with my fears. I learned from myself what was propping them up, and then I learned to let those things go.”

If you want to identify with this statement, you might benefit from the Anxiety Rewiring modality.

Anxiety Rewiring may resonate with clients who have tried CBT and still feel emotionally raw or stuck, especially those who “understand their trauma” but haven’ been able to shift. It supports those who shut down when over-analytical or find modalities like CBT too shallow.

The AR modality works best for those willing to reflect, feel, and heal. For clients who are strongly avoidant of emotional insight or connection — including those with entrenched antagonism, performance, or control-based coping — other structured modalities like CBT will be more accessible.