CBT

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I agree.
I think it's too unidimenional. It has to be viewed as only one of the available tools. And I am finding that it has forced me to review my thinking. But the cost is self-doubt and I don't need encouragement there.
Emotions are valid and should be followed not denied.
(Depression is an illness not an emotion.)

I thought you might find this interesting:
https://neurobollocks.wordpress.com/201 ... pfffftttt/

My experience first experience with psychology was a mad freudian pyschiatrist who was worse than useless to me.

My parents were deeply suspicious of psychiatry and psychology, partly because of real experiences of quackery and abuse and partly because denial was a family mechanism for dealing with the fact that there were more than a few multigenerational peculiarities in the family. The fact that some members of the family were very successful in business, or as artists or writers made it easy to celebrate the quirks of "eccentric genius" while looking the other way from the self-medicating losers who failed the various "sink or swim" tests that they put through.

By the time I was 12, I had been deeply depressed for years and increasingly thought of death as the only way to end the pain. I rationally developed a pretty sure suicide method and plan, but on the point of no return decided to live at all costs and cling to what I liked in life regardless of how alienated that might make me. But I knew I needed help so I begged my family to get it for me.

The guy was ridiculous. He was terrified of me because I was much bigger than he was. All he could talk about was my potential for violence. Was I going to hurt him? When he discussed the possibility of my assaulting him--something I showed not one shred of a hint of sign of even thinking about, he became excited and seemed to be lost in reveries of being a victim. He was uninterested in any of the details of my misery, not how things were in school, or the town I was in at the time, or the family--just "you won't HURT me, will you?".. his eyes glazing over with excitement...

In a very unfair way, on the basis of this one very negative experience, I concluded that psychiatry was bogus and it's practitioners charlatans. When I tried to study the mind and found that there were NO good theories about what consciousness is or how it works, this only confirmed the prejudice I had developed based on that encounter. I read Freud but also Mousaieff Masson and my view of the Freudian enterprise was not improved. Jung was interesting, but seemed to belong to some land between mythology and fiction that had points of contact with reality but no more. That whole way of thinking seems great for art and useful for exploring and engaging aspects of a person's inner life--but doesn't really explain or reveal anything. The more those ideas were pushed to any kind of system of explanation, the less useful or grounded in reality they seemed.

What I have seen with CBT seems similar: there are a few useful tools for a very specific kind of problem to do with negative and distorted self-talk and thought. "I suck at life" is NOT a rational response to being merely good at something, but not the best. In some ways this part of CBT seems very like the useful introspection that can emerge form vipassana-when you examine the content of these inner monologues, you may find that you are your own enemy and defeat yourself before you even attempt something. But to extend it beyond that to areas where it's ideas are not logically applicable seems terribly wrong, a kind of malpractice. CBT for psychosis or schizophrenia seems to make as much sense as CBT for gunshot wounds or burns.

It seems to me that the problem that hangs over psychology and makes all the quackery and the excessive claims of all these schools of thought possible is that they really have no understanding of what consciousness, thoughts and feelings are or how they develop and change. The problem is made worse because of the clear effects that certain biological changes have on these systems: Phineas Gage, all the war injury studies, split corpus callosum cases and cerebellar hypoplasias. It's so glaringly clear that psychological processes emerge from the nervous system, but so much of the psychological theorizing and dogmatizing has been about the mind and consciousness as something separate (or separable in the cartesian scheme.) And the whole enterprise is so tarnished by an avoidance of admitting how much is just not known.

It's even worse when people bring in monstrous rubbish of postemodernist critical theory. Lacan??? I don't know whether PT Barnum or James Randi provides a better lens for looking at Derrida, Lacan and the other players in that game, but it's a road to nowhere. It's painful to see people using the rhetorical strategies of that vast intellectual fraud in discussing psychology. The last thing psychology needs is new techniques for obfuscation!

I am very interested in this subject and I would love to learn more from you. Would you consider opening a thread tod discuss psychology in general: history, theories, practices and your experience? I suspect more than a few here would be interested.

Last edited by Adamantium on 21 Mar 2015, 9:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

And how much isn't admitted to. People resist the idea that physicality is what determines our behaviour, not character. Gage is a perfect example.

Or you could.

I think this is part of some deep anxiety about "free will" and instrumentality.

I could start thread to explore psychology in general, but not B19's deep experience of the field. That's the thing I am hopping to see!

Yes, if there is no free will our whole system will fall apart.

Her posts are very useful.

Right.... here's my experience with CBT: it really hasn't been negative. In fact, in my case, CBT was actually a godsend. I don't mean to say CBT is an effective treatment for people on the spectrum, and I'm not trying to propagate it, but every argument needs 2 sides. So I'll sort of stick up for CBT here.

Much of my "treatment" for my Asperger's syndrome was based on believing that I was a mental ret*d, that I was slow-developing, that I was, for the most part, hopeless, and that I was doomed to need assistance regardless of whether I wanted it or not. At the very least, CBT provided ways that said that I was superior to what most of the people treating me thought I was. In addition, CBT actually helped my cognitive skills in many ways as well.

What CBT provided for me was that, I, as a human being, actually had hope as a person. It almost feels as if constant subjugation to inferiority tactics had completely destroyed my self-esteem and being. At the very least, CBT provided some of that back. Instead of being assumed I was doomed, CBT again, provided that I could improve, and to be a bit more positive. And hey? I now know how to drive pretty well, I don't have any meltdowns, my social skills have improved very nicely, and overall I feel CBT did FAR more than any typical ABA/drilling bullcrap.

So, is CBT bad for all aspies? I can't say. In my case, CBT was a breath of fresh air from the ABA/drilling tactics that I had been subjected to, but honestly, anything is an improvement to such, so such statement might be meaningless. Also, what I provide is anecdotal evidence. I will say that some aspects of CBT are probably still worth incorporating (at least for some people), but as a full-on treatment? Probably not a good idea.

Again, the key word is individual. What works for one person, doesn't for another. It's like ABA being "gold-standard"; in the end, it's utterly meaningless.

I think it's easy to get lost in the overly simplistic notions that something is good, so it's always good, or bad, so it's always bad. CBT done well by an empathic and experienced therapist could probably help many people. I think that includes people with psychosis and depression and schizophrenia, who are, after all, still people and whose quality of life is dependent on many things, not just the presence or absence of voices. We all need to eat and we all need to feel self respect and to experience the support of others, regardless of diagnostic status. I find that awareness of that fact is often missing outside of WrongPlanet.

There was a thread about giving birth in the past few days with people getting very annoyed about childbirth being with or without medical interventions, including epidurals and pain medication. And as bothered as people got about the issue of pain relief during delivery, no one argued with the suggestion to hire a doola to increase psychological comfort. With or without the epidural. They did argue about the epidural a lot.....

Using CBT doesn't invalidate or necessarily cure many aspects of mental disorders and challenges, but if it is done well and validates the healthy aspects of a person's functioning while supporting ways around one's challenges, then yes, it could be helpful for anyone. That doesn't mean though that 6-12 sessions can be expected to cure autism or psychosis or schizophrenia or even depression. Maybe there are some lucky individuals who feel enough better from that support they're able to recover naturally, but I don't think CBT is curing those things. I do think that done well it may enhance one's quality of life and I think the more labels one has, the more tools one needs for that end.

And I kind of wonder if that's where people go wrong, trying to cure us of our autism in 6-12 sessions of CBT, instead of looking through our eyes and working to enhance the quality of our lives, and making the commitment to being there long enough to make a difference.

You couldn't have said it any better. Small doses, and not only that, but regards to the individual as well as good planning.

Your last paragraph though is an issue for practically all autism "treatments" out there: the end goal is to make us act neurotypical, no matter what the cost, no matter the time. As I said before, this isn't strictly limited to CBT, but practically any approach in 2015. The approach I received was definitely more based of treating me like I was a full-on ret*d (no offense), and it failed miserably, and ironically held back my development.

Fix you're attitude. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Negative thoughts are worthless they are no use to anyone and nobody cares so It is counterproductive to say that since you had troubles in the past you will always do. You should see what you struggled with in the past and work on it but try without holding yourself to a mega high standard or being stressed.

I personally like mindfulness work it really helps me. When you have a task that you must practice think of it as a new thing even if its not and if you have had trouble before because before is in the past. Now is when you can succeed lol.

I hope you understand

See, that just assumes that everything is a problem of attitude.
Like someone in a wheelchair once said "No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs is going to make it change into a ramp.".

Concurred. A lot of people tell me this, and overall it gets to a point where it's f*****g platitudinous. Ignoring potential root causes always lead to a disaster.

I have chronic depression. That is what CBT was developed for, and it works for that purpose. I don't think mindfulness was originally part of CBT, though. Of course, people have developed many variants of CBT over the years. I also try to practice mindfulness. My understanding of mindfulness is that you pay attention to what you are sensing currently. This helps with anxiety because anxiety is worrying about things that are not part of present reality. I have had a lot of success with mindfulness. It worked more than any single thing to improve my mental health. If I am mindful, I don't have to use the CBT stuff (challenging negative thoughts, replacing them with more realistic thoughts). Mindfulness is extremely difficult to practice however. When a person is anxious, the automatic thing that person starts to do is worry and try to find something to make the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety go away--usually some compulsive behavior. It takes a lot of disciple to stay in the present moment when your mind wants to go elsewhere. However, with daily practice the results are amazing. I am pretty good at stopping all the negative thoughts and worry unless I get too depressed. That's when I need psych meds or exercise or some kind of physical, chemical intervention to counteract the negative thought patterns.

One more thing. CBT works for depression, but I don't think it has proven itself to be as effective when applied to other problems. Counselors like to use it a lot though because it is the treatment preferred my insurance companies (in my humble opinion). They have to use evidence-based practices in order to get paid for their services.

Re the history of American psychology:

While I know that the general public are under the impression (spread by the media, psychiatrists and pyschoanalysts) that Sigmund Freud was the "founding father" of psychology, he wasn't. That true founding father of American psychology was the American philosopher and scientist William James. (Brother of the novelist Henry James). WJ was a fascinating, well educated and insightful man who pondered the true and full nature of human consciousness, (still unsolved) and knew that psychology could never be truly informative if it was not itself informed by the philosophy of science, and was cognizant of the multi-levelled creatures that humans are - his approach was that you can't understand the mind of a human without considering all the other parts that make up a human being. Sensation and perception fascinated him, and metaphysical inquiry too - Ralph Waldo Emerson was a close associate and influence.

James was as wide in his views of psychology as behaviourism is narrow, - they are polar opposites.

For William James, there were 5 realms of human thinking as a function of the stream of consciousness and the self:

(1) all thought is owned by some personal self;
(2) all thought, as experienced by human consciousness, is constantly in flux and never static;
(3) nevertheless, there is an ongoing continuity of thought for every thinker, as it moves from one object to another (like the alternating times of flight and perching in a bird’s life), constantly comprising shifting foci and the contextual fringes within which they are given;
(4) thought typically deals with objects different from and independent of consciousness itself, so that two minds can experience common objects;
(5) consciousness takes an interest in particular objects, choosing to focus on them rather than on others.

He conceptualised this as a dynamic process of inter-linked mental activity: from perceiving and experiencing to imagination, reflection, evidence testing in one's mind, belief, intuition, analysis, and so on. Essentially, for him, the primary source of all our subsequent thoughts/beliefs was the sensory and perceptual input from the world around us.

This is as far away from CBT, philosophically, as it is possible to be, the polar opposite. CBT, like all behaviourist theories, is based on the goal of the practitioner being able to predict and control the behaviour of others, and ignores completely any notion of human consciousness as a dynamic and essential human function. No matter how you may try to dress it up, this remains true of behaviourist approaches. This is why the founding father of behaviourism (B F Skinner) entitled his book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity". He didn't believe that these values were important to humans, as in his own view, they were just delusionary anyway. In Skinner's view, people were basically input-output robots, they could be programmed by his 'operant conditioning'.

Personally, I think that there are philosophical links to be drawn between Skinner and L Ron Hubbard - they both founded cults based on dogmatic versions of "truth".

Sorry for the history lesson, however it might help place CBT in a comparative and historical framework.

This article is chilling: it strips bare any pretence that CBT in the UK is not being used for purely political purposes. (Especially take note of the paragraph toward the end on the very elementary level of qualification deemed acceptable to become a CBT mind reprogrammer and that this is deemed acceptable by the political architects)

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2009 ... employment

I've had therapists try to "use" CBT on me. I don't like the process. I don't like the feeling of being controlled. The problem with CBT is it requires an inherent trust of the therapist.

A therapist tells me to write in a journal. I tell him I don't want to. He says if you're not willing to help yourself, I can't help you.. I tell him he's an as*hole. Lol.

That's therapy for you. Therapy is deemed successful when those who would have helped themselves anyway decided to help themselves.

Hmm... well, you'll probably disagree but I think you might feel better if you stop fighting how you feel.