Who has had cognitive behavioral therapy and what was it lik

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Not that I want it. I think it's entirely for other people, not for you. It's for the benefit of the people around you not having to put up with your behaviors. Nobody knows better than you what's good for you. For example, a CBT therapist might tell someone to shut up about their problems and write them in a diary instead. But a book is not a person. What they needed wasn't just to think about their problems or write them down, but also to have a shoulder to cry on, or whatever. Just my opinion.

Actually that is plain wrong. CBT is not for the other people’s benefit, which is why CTB 'therapists' are often surplice to requirements, as your input is the only thing that really matters. Of course to can learn techniques from books, but there is a difference from the concept of CBT and different CBT techniques. You can develop your own.

Obviously the person suggesting CBT to you does understand the principles of it, as they would not be persistent if you are not ready, because it can't start without a clearly defined problem (this is the primary tenant), and your willingness. Lots of people suggest CBT because it is popular, but that doesn't mean they understand it properly.

Suffice to say if you were non compos mentis most of the time, I would question if you can do CBT. You do need a modicum of self awareness to do it, at the very least to monitor progress.

I have done it for social anxiety, it helped. I still use it for other thing every now and then (without thinking mostly). I can't always use it because i don't have a clearly defined problem or I don't have the motivation yet. But it is a useful tool to have. Once you learn the principles often you don't need somebody there to make suggestions, in fact that can be counter productive. Of course in are where you have less self awareness it might help to start with a therapist. Not all therapist are created equally, some might come up with better suggestions.

Btw I have heard of CBT therapists turn down patents because they didn't think they had the necessary motivation yet. If you are like that you might as well try something else.

Also make sure you check their credentials. They should be chartered and you will be able to look them up. My friend was conned by somebody who strung him along for a year.

Tried it and it didnt work for me

Maybe im just to suspcious of head doctors or something but i came out as bad as i went in.

Talked to another shrink and she said cause of aspie lack of imagination and such its not very successful with aspies

why would you want to do it on AS anyway? CBT works on specific problems not a general difference.

I think it can work with ASD people. Disadvantage is lack of self awareness, I don't buy into the lack of 'imagination' thing, but that kind of a moot point for me but that is a whole other story. Advantages for me are analogical nature.

It has work on things I have some idea of what is wrong like social phobia. I haven't changed all my avoidance. that is because I don't usually consider it to be a problem.

It is harder if you have clinical executive dysfunction or offensive/random anxiety that you can't pin down.

I think people are turned off by the label CBT, but in fact it is not rocket science. Chances are you have done something surmounting to CBT before without realising it.

I have to agree with Ana. The first time I went to therapy I got the feeling that the therapist wanted to put me on medications just so I'd be less of a nuisance to the people around me and also to make her job easier. I didn't need medications. I felt I was fine. And since I didn't go to therapy in an effort to make anyone's life harder or easier, I didn't bother following her instructions.

Lack of imagination? Wow. That has nothing to do with CBT. You don't actually need a great deal of imagination.

CBT is very, very logical: Your thoughts influence your actions, your actions influence your thoughts, and both influence your feelings. If you are aware of your thoughts and actions, you can change feelings, actions, and thoughts by working with the interplay of thought and action.

For example, a perfectionist like me might have the thought, "I have to get 100% on this paper, or it means I'm not smart." You can challenge that in two ways: Attack the thought, or attack the resulting action (in my case, the action is to put off doing the paper, not turn it in, and then tell myself that my zero is because I was lazy--if I risk turning the paper in, you see, I risk finding out I'm not smart.) If you attack the thought first, you can go about it by generating a more realistic statement to tell yourself whenever you catch yourself thinking that way: "If I don't get 100% on this paper, that means I made a mistake on the paper," and "Making mistakes doesn't mean I'm not intelligent; it just means I made a mistake."

Or else, if you're not completely paralyzed by the fear of turning in an imperfect paper (I have been, in the past), you can force yourself to complete just one paper and turn it in--even though you know it probably has mistakes in it. That's like an experiment: When you get the paper back, and it has a 91% on the top, you realize it's actually not so bad not to be perfect. If you're lucky, the prof will even write "Good job" or something on the paper. You handle all sorts of anxiety and fear that way; fear is actually worsened by avoiding the feared object--in this case, failure to be perfect.

In either case, if you stop thinking constantly that you have to be perfect, then you stop acting like it's more important than just getting things done; if you stop acting like that, then you'll realize it's not so bad and your thoughts will follow. It's a matter of self-training. A good CBT therapist is actually more of a coach than anything; you're doing the real work to change yourself.

Anyway, you can see how very logical all this is. I don't see that it would really work to decrease core symptoms of Asperger's--social skills classes are better for that--but it would certainly help with some of the peripheral stuff like managing your meltdowns or overcoming social anxiety or developing strategies to get around executive dysfunction. CBT, done properly, is about learning about yourself and getting your thoughts and actions to be realistic and efficient.