CBT tells you to be aware of your surroundings and to question all of your negative thoughts to frame them in a more positive way. The problem I had with it is that all negative thoughts are not invalid, and tricking yourself into thinking they are is basically gaslighting yourself. Also, when I was in a rough spot and having a hard time figuring out what to do, questioning all of my thoughts just led to more distrust in myself, which had a negative effect on my mental health, not positive.
I don’t think CBT is necessarily bad when used in the right situations, but it is definitely not a cure-all like the current buzz about it tries to sell it as and it can absolutely have a negative impact.
I think it may work for someone who isn’t keen on introspection in the first place, but if you are, you’ve probably already spent a decent amount of time reflecting on the truthiness of your thoughts and feelings, and even when you know they aren’t necessarily accurate, just fluffing yourself up doesn’t solve anything, because you are acutely aware that’s what you are doing.
It’s even worse when the things you need therapy for are circumstantial, like work/relationship stress or trauma, or about some core part of who you are (autism/adhd, etc) and they try to apply cbt… like… that’s not helpful because the problem isn’t with my outlook, it’s with something I have no or very little actual control over, and I need productive ways to deal with it. I want someone to point out when I’m thinking about things wrong, sure, but that’s more like that I “sneak” food in the middle of the night and feel guilt for helping myself (despite having permission to eat whatever I want - only my own food that I pay for is fair game in my mind) and refer to taking food from the family fridge as a kid as theft, because my mother used to tell me I stole it, and I did used to be a klepto. I want someone to point out my trauma responses, not tell me to view all the stressful things as opportunities when they aren’t.
I did read a book, however, that I like to recommend to therapists I talk to, so they can be aware that I’m aware of self-restructuring already. It’s actually a really good book, and I hope the research is fully accurate because if so, just reading it and knowing about how stress can be good for you, is actually enough to help lower all-cause mortality related to stress, which would be pretty cool. It’s called The Upside of Stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it by Dr. Kelly McGonigal (link removed due to sucking - internetarchive apparently stripped that title as part of the purge, and I can’t find any other links that aren’t to torrents, or shady, but if you search for audiobookbay, you can find it there as an audiobook and I’ve used that site for years.)
It’s interesting as I wonder if that’s what my therapist was going to begin to try. She would try to explain how my thoughts are untrue, but I don’t think that made much sense. What would have made more sense is to accept that there are points to these thoughts and then to try to figure out where to go from there.
Did you find anything in particular that helped you?
I know exactly what you mean. I was like that for so long, and for me, for some reason, one moment about 25 years ago everything changed and my general perspective that I had had for so long shifted, and I found a way to let go of the negativity and instead embrace the positivity. The whole moment lasted maybe a minute, and after that my life was different. No drugs or anything involved. I was literally just standing in my doorway looking at some tall grass blowing in the wind, noticing the beauty that was right there waiting to be found.
That’s probably not helpful because there’s no way I could help somebody find what I experienced, but maybe it’ll be hopeful.
CBT tells you to be aware of your surroundings and to question all of your negative thoughts to frame them in a more positive way. The problem I had with it is that all negative thoughts are not invalid, and tricking yourself into thinking they are is basically gaslighting yourself. Also, when I was in a rough spot and having a hard time figuring out what to do, questioning all of my thoughts just led to more distrust in myself, which had a negative effect on my mental health, not positive.
I don’t think CBT is necessarily bad when used in the right situations, but it is definitely not a cure-all like the current buzz about it tries to sell it as and it can absolutely have a negative impact.
This was the problem I had with it too.
I think it may work for someone who isn’t keen on introspection in the first place, but if you are, you’ve probably already spent a decent amount of time reflecting on the truthiness of your thoughts and feelings, and even when you know they aren’t necessarily accurate, just fluffing yourself up doesn’t solve anything, because you are acutely aware that’s what you are doing.
It’s even worse when the things you need therapy for are circumstantial, like work/relationship stress or trauma, or about some core part of who you are (autism/adhd, etc) and they try to apply cbt… like… that’s not helpful because the problem isn’t with my outlook, it’s with something I have no or very little actual control over, and I need productive ways to deal with it. I want someone to point out when I’m thinking about things wrong, sure, but that’s more like that I “sneak” food in the middle of the night and feel guilt for helping myself (despite having permission to eat whatever I want - only my own food that I pay for is fair game in my mind) and refer to taking food from the family fridge as a kid as theft, because my mother used to tell me I stole it, and I did used to be a klepto. I want someone to point out my trauma responses, not tell me to view all the stressful things as opportunities when they aren’t.
I did read a book, however, that I like to recommend to therapists I talk to, so they can be aware that I’m aware of self-restructuring already. It’s actually a really good book, and I hope the research is fully accurate because if so, just reading it and knowing about how stress can be good for you, is actually enough to help lower all-cause mortality related to stress, which would be pretty cool. It’s called The Upside of Stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it by Dr. Kelly McGonigal (link removed due to sucking - internetarchive apparently stripped that title as part of the purge, and I can’t find any other links that aren’t to torrents, or shady, but if you search for audiobookbay, you can find it there as an audiobook and I’ve used that site for years.)
Yeah. Inattentive ADHD caught late in life here. Thanks for the book recommendation. I’m definitely gonna check it out.
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It’s interesting as I wonder if that’s what my therapist was going to begin to try. She would try to explain how my thoughts are untrue, but I don’t think that made much sense. What would have made more sense is to accept that there are points to these thoughts and then to try to figure out where to go from there.
Did you find anything in particular that helped you?
To be honest, just talk therapy worked the best for me.
I know exactly what you mean. I was like that for so long, and for me, for some reason, one moment about 25 years ago everything changed and my general perspective that I had had for so long shifted, and I found a way to let go of the negativity and instead embrace the positivity. The whole moment lasted maybe a minute, and after that my life was different. No drugs or anything involved. I was literally just standing in my doorway looking at some tall grass blowing in the wind, noticing the beauty that was right there waiting to be found.
That’s probably not helpful because there’s no way I could help somebody find what I experienced, but maybe it’ll be hopeful.
The human psyche is really complicated.
It is for sure. I’m glad you had that experience.