CBT

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I've never had much luck with therapy. My shrink got me into a program like that too.

Did you end up getting a job out of it?

Not yet. I'm still on the waiting list.

Wow. You just made up a bunch of crap there.
I am not doing that to my son or my self and I would sue anyone who tried to do that for malpractice. Feeling frustrated is perfectly valid. Concluding that there is no hope and should be no hope for anything better is not.

I agree with sweatleaf: a lot of this stuff just comes up and trying to suppress that makes no sense, but not believing the stories that your mind invents to explain those feelings is also important. It's possible to approach these ideas without taking them to the absurd extreme.

What to make of the complete silence of CBT about 1) the existence of the subconscious and 2) the influence of the subconscious on behaviours? Not everything that influences our thoughts, feelings and behaviour is conscious to us at all times, 24/7. We are complicated, multi-layered creatures. But CBT ignores that complexity.

Certainly we may only have a single conscious thought in our mind at any time, but thought is part of larger conceptual store subconsciously available to us to draw on as needed and conceptual webs enable our constructions of reality, understanding, imagination, possibility etc - the higher faculties that are part of being human.

What is (if any) the deeper impact of a psychologist manipulating a subject's conscious thoughts? Can it safely be assumed that the process is harmless because the subconscious is of no interest to CBT theorists?

If you are a behaviourist, it's fine, because of the simplicity of the fundamental behaviorist concept that stimulus-response is the reigning explanation of human behaviour. Humanistic psychologists don't accept that; nor do the critical theorists and post-modernists.

The neo-liberal politicians seem to like behaviourist treatments. In the USA, they get behind ABA; in the UK, they seem to push CBT more. Both are behaviourist treatments, the same conceptual underpinnings, however you dress up the surface. Both are manipulative, in my view anyway.

Ah...these services move at the pace of snails. I hope it goes well for you.
I'm going to continue participating even if I don't agree with the principles. It's the only route to employment left for me.

I'm talking hypothetically. I used your son as an example because you did. Obviously I have no idea if your son sucks at life or not.


But if that's how he feels then isn't that valid enough. To teach him to modify his feelings and lie to himself and blame himself for his feelings is damaging.
It's unfortunate that neurotypical values lead to a devaluation of differing values to the point of coercing thought and expression.

Androbot, It appears you had your mind made up about CBT before you posted. I would have posted my positive experiences elsewhere if I had known that in advance. I don't recall any books on CBT ever mentioning denying your feelings or lying to yourself (two things I am totally against) but I don't think I'll be able to get those points across here. Best of luck to you with the program.

I sense this thread is going down the tubes.

Nothing wrong with a good debate--as long as people don't personally abuse other people.

As with any philosophy of anything, there are good components, and there are bad components.

I believe CBT, in general (without the "denial of the unconscious" and other dogmatically behavioral components), could be a good thing for some. I believe it encourages the evolution of the person. I don't believe in people being "stuck" in one evolutionary place.

This could be a potentially productive debate.

There are quibbles with CBT because of its "behavioralist" elements. I would agree, up to a point. The component which deal with the progress of the person, despite barriers, is what appeals to me.

An absolute adherence to behaviorism is damaging. However, the complete denial of external elements leading to symptoms, or to lack of symptoms, is also damaging. There is both "nature" and "nurture" in everything.

I am not talking hypothetically, I am talking about practical ways of dealing powerful and destructive ideas and feelings.


That seems like elevating politics over reality. Who said anything about "blaming himself" for his feelings. I think maybe the people you did CBT with were incompetent.

Isn't it valid enough to feel suicidal because a relationship broke down and everything looks bleak in the aftermath? The feeling is valid but the false estimations that every outcome of every attempt at any activity will be negative that come with those feelings is not valid.

Is the thought that you are doomed to unending failure in life because you got an 86 on a math quiz instead of the 100 you expected valid? The feeling of disappointment is valid, the projection of abject failure is not.

Should we encourage suicidal, depressed people to fully embrace those feelings of hopelessness? What the hell for? I wish someone had "damaged" me by helping me see that that stuff was unreal when I was in my darkest hours.

I don't think this has anything at all to do with "neurotypical values."

It may be that the foundation of CBT was bound up in an ideology that denied the subconscious, but it's been adopted as one set of tools among many by a lot of people who are not pursuing a Skinnerian Jihad to achieve mind control in the name. The CBT-using therapists I have talked to in recent years all seemed to believe in subconscious actiivity.

Until there is some evidence for what consciousness is and how it works, this is all religious war anyway. I am not interested in being on one side or another, I just want to know if the practice works. I don't think it's a pancea, but it does seem to work on particular issues.

Well put, Adamentium---very illustrative!

Once, I got a 96 in a math test---and a threw a Temper Tantrum galore. This might have borne out of a feeling of "hopelessness." I had to be forced to see what the reality was cognitively--that it really wasn't a bad grade at all.

Anything that's presented in a "doctrinaire" manner defeats the purpose. We need flexibility to obtain results.

I don't agree with presenting CBT as an automatic panacea. This is akin to creating a cult. I think Ann is using the right approach mostly--take the good with the bad, and get that job!

How so?

CBT used in the treatment of depression is worse than doing nothing. It's kicking someone when they're down.

What I think Ann needs right now is some good lovin'!

Haha...not the first time I've been told this. Certainly couldn't hurt.