Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? And how your brain works on an

Chump · Newbie User Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 3 Location: Canada

Hey! Just recently, I've been told about CBT for a possible treatment for my SAD, and I came across this excellent article which documents how your brain works irrationally:

http://www.cognitivetherapy.com/socPhobPrint.html

Anyway aside from that article, I havent been able to find any concrete treatment advice. Other than those charging you $800 for an 400 part tape series consisting of: Understanding how to understand the understanding of SAD, Tapes 1 through 27 and so on..

Any of you guys have any good (Free) reads or articles on defeating SAD throuh CBT or other means? Any of you tried a CBT program?

Frozen_In_Time · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:58 pm Post subject:

Thanks Chump,

I'm sorry no one acknowledged this post before. (There were certainly some hits before).

Take care.

jericho · Guest

I know alot of people will disagree with me but I'll say it anyway: CBT won't help you. In fact, it will make things worse. We are not normal. We don't behave normally in social situations. There is a reason for this. CBT is all about convincing you that this isnt the case. Its as if you really are normal and youre imagining it all. All you have to do is "start thinking normally" and then everything will be fine. Total BS. The truth is that even in the most simple social situations, we freak out. Hence "Social phobia."

If you dont medicate yourself, the side effects are: not having a life.

scardecat · Guest

you may be right but medication dosnt work for everyone either. Me being one of those. I was worse with meds but thats possibly cause i over think everything and sorta felt like NOW everyone has one more reason to look at me cause im ON DRUGS.. Dumb, but that's what happened to me. For Others it has saved their "life"!! So, the cbt therapy, i aggre can make you worse too. It opened up too much more thoughts to think about so just got me even noticing more of the "avoidence, and terror this crap has me doing. but....again.......either one has also worked for some. So, ya just gotta try. For me, i live quite normal, so long as i can avoid some things. If not able to though...POWie! It hits hard. Lots of people have no idea that i have this prob. Weard, off i go babbling again but it's such a reliefe. More so for me than either treatments...well, not totally, cause cbt is good in other ways...

ella · Newbie User Joined: Dec 01, 2003 Posts: 17

I`ve been through CBT.After a 5 months of therapy I was able to do the things I wasn`t able to do my whole life.We are normal.There are some paths of behaviour and thinking in our brains that are wrong.What CBT does is that it teaches you to think like all the other `normal`people do.It is something that can be learned.Second step is to find the causes of it.I`m curently dealing with that.After a two years I`m functioning normaly, without any help of medications.You just need a lot of courage and a strong will to start all over again.Like a baby Wink

Try it!

MarCPatt · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 5:05 pm Post subject: I agree with you all.

after reading all these posts my little light bulb went on. I think that all of you are right. Not everyone is the same. It seems that not everything works for everyone, but it does not mean that something may not work for some.

Plus, we do not have to end up all being social butterflies. As long as we feel happy with ourselves who says we have to be social butterflies in order to be normal. We can be the quiet ones and be normal. There is nothing wrong with being quiet.

Jess333 · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 5:34 am Post subject:

Whoa whoa Jericho.. ease down. Very Happy

Yes it can help and no it will not make things worse. Do you realize that you are condemning the rest of your life with your thought patterns? You just told yourself and everyone else that you WILL be like this for the rest of your life. Read my post called MY STORY in this forum.

You just told yourself that you're not normal and that you can't behave normally, of course that's going to make you freaked out and scared. You need to take charge of this issue.

I propose this: This nervous reaction + depression is because of how you THINK. If you think you're not normal, it will depress you.

Once you KNOW what causes this, you can find a way to fix it.

READ MY POST.

Take care.

I know alot of people will disagree with me but I'll say it anyway: CBT won't help you. In fact, it will make things worse. We are not normal. We don't behave normally in social situations. There is a reason for this. CBT is all about convincing you that this isnt the case. Its as if you really are normal and youre imagining it all. All you have to do is "start thinking normally" and then everything will be fine. Total BS. The truth is that even in the most simple social situations, we freak out. Hence "Social phobia."

If you dont medicate yourself, the side effects are: not having a life.

Colin · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 1:13 am Post subject:

Thanks for the article, it was very insightful even if I have trouble agreeing with parts. The article fails to link itself together in a big picture, and I would also like to see him expand on some parts but I guess that is beyond the scope of what he can tell us.
I agree, CBT just does not connect the dots on a conscious level.

JoeRandomUser · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:38 am Post subject:

I believe CBT works. I've been working through CBT programs over the past 2 years or so and I have seen noticable changes in the way I deal with social situations. Not everything is perfect yet -- it's a slow process -- but the progress that I have made is encouraging.

There are two CBT programs I know of floating around on various peer 2 peer networks. I won't go into detail here, but PM me if you're interested.