CBT is a very generalised term that means teaching the sufferer different ways of coping with their problems, this includes learning new attitudes towards their fears, new ways of dealing with fears and panic attacks, and new ways of calming and relaxing themselves
the older treatments, so called psychodynamics, etc concentrated on finding or uncovering hidden subconscious causes for the anxiety problems, applying the theories of freud, jung, etc. these never helped and have now been mostly abandoned, although some psychs are too old to change and have a religious belief in them
in other words, CBT is about treating the symptoms and not the cause
its less elegant and sophisticated, but it works ! the old methods almost never helped
truthg serum was sometimes used to aid uncovering hidden causes, also anxiety sufferers were sometimes given many electric shock treatments
it was thought that the panic attacks were serious, its now realised that they arent