What is cognitive-behavioral therapy like?

[Stoochy]

The problem I have with ACT is that it's like the Intelligent Design of psychology. It takes clinically proven, scientific ideas (CBT) and ties them in with spiritual ideas (Budhism). If you ask me, I would say that the inventor of the approach just did this to sell and make money. He knew that most people used spirituality and religion to give them a sense of guidance and meaning to their lives, so he capitalized on this fact in order to sell these "new" ideas to a much larger audience.

Anxiety and depression are nothing more than bad habits of insecurity that you pick up. There are obvious genetic predispositions, but that doesn't mean you have to be a slave to your mind for the rest of your life. It means that the person has a lower threshold for susceptibility. That's all. If you have a habit of smoking, what are you going to do, tell yourself it's ok, become one with your habit, and then continue to fill your lungs with harmful cigarette smoke hoping that you quit? No, you're going to starve the habit until the feelings to smoke go away. That's how I view anxiety and depression, that's what seems logical, and that's what has worked for me and many of my friends.

But you have to realize that those "distracting thoughts" aren't natural and shouldn't exist to begin with. The problem is that us humans have this unnatural need to control life due to our advanced consciousness. Think about this: does an alphamale gorilla get depressed if his penis was a little smaller than some of the other male gorillas in the wild? Hell no. That beast has one natural directive, and it's to mate with as many female gorillas as he can. Does a lioness sit on a tree for weeks and sulk if a lion messes with the pride and kills her cubs? Heck no, she's spraying pheromones like a firehose the next day. Can a shark turn into the Jigsaw killer and plan out a bunch of psychological murder schemes with his prey? Nope, it only knows one thing: acquire & kill.

Depression and anxiety (including social anxiety), in my opinion, is nothing more than a habit that you generate from unnatural control thoughts spun by our little advanced brains, or insecurity-driven thoughts. We start developing strategies for control at early ages; some of us worried a lot (or tried to keep in control by trying to predict what was around the corner in order to prepare for it), some of us were shy and avoidant (or tried to keep in control by avoiding the chaos of being put on the spot and not knowing what to do or say), some of us were hostile (or tried to keep in control by pushing people away - by pushing away, they couldn't hurt you), some us were perfectionists (or tried to keep in control by avoiding messing up), etc. Over time, these control strategies became habituated and became a part of us. We were like jugglers juggling balls of worry, doubts, fears, ruminations, negatives, etc. And then one day, one of the balls fell. And then another fell. And another. Before we knew it, the symptoms crept up on us, and we became depressed or anxious. Up until that point though, we felt like we were in control of life.

In other words, insecurity and uncertainty generated fear, the fear was countered by an attempt to control life with an array of unnatural control strategies, and finally, the effort it took for you to control life eventually wore you down as the symptoms of depression oranxiety then crept in. Congratulations, your unhealthy, unnatural thought pattern has just generated depression.

The ultimate goal of an unhappy or anxious person is to build enough self-trust to live a reactive, spontaneous life (a life akin to an animal in the wild); a life that doesn't dwell on unreasonable thoughts of the past or worries of the future; a life that's completely in the moment. What anti-depressants do is shrink the habituated control/insecurity thoughts, the only problem is that all the other side-effects usually cause more stress, and thus more depression and loss of hope. It's a vicious cycle for some people who take meds.

That's what seems logical, especially when you read that our DNA is 99% similar to that of a chimpanzee. All the "mindfulness"and "ACT" crap makes absolutely zero sense at all. The only reason some people find that it works is the same reason people going to church believe that they're more humble and peaceful than everyone else: the ideas give you a false sense of meaning, guidance, and security. It doesn't work at the core or root of the problem.

I think your very right. You can see the prove of that in a lot of cultures or tribes who arent so busy thinking but more busy working the field or hurdling sheep and stuff like that and their happy as hell.

 

[Stoochy]

but on the other hand, we are not like animals. There s a huge difference. ven if they say 99 percent is the same as the chimp,who says how big that one percent difference is. Animals dont think about stuff other than survival,reproduce. we on the other hand we are concsious beings and we think about other stuff not only on surviving.

 

[FcukingIdiot]

How many CBT sessions do you need to reprogram your attitude and notice changes?

 

[Danfalc]

Okay, can we get back to the real question please? No one has even answered it yet!

What sabbath92003 wrote was sort of right if a little dumbed down.When you do c.b.t therapy... well when i did anyway this is what happens.You do it one on one with a therapist who you go and see like every week.He tells you the theory that the ngeaitve thoughts we have are like a bad habit weve got ourselves into and that we need to unlearn them to break the cycle.

When i went one of the first things i had to do was put myself in a really stressfull situation,and write down the negative thoughts I had.I then took these with me and my therapist,got me to read through them and try to understand them.You look at them and try to see if there actualy rational or not.Because alot of the thoughts are self defeating... and were constantly setting ourselves up to fail.Then after that..you try and understand why you have these thoughts... and you try and understand your core fears and beliefs.

You sit down and discuss these core thinking patterns... and try and gain some understanding into themThen basicaly you do alot of exposure work... you put yourself into anxiety causing situations and rate how bad your anxiety is... write down the thoughts you had during it.And yeah like sabbath said you try and see if the thoughts you have are not only negative but realistic..Like for me id always think i was making a complete ass out of myself so my therapist would be like... do you know that for sure?and you try to challenge them.

The course i did was quite intensive.. and would have me putting myself in anxiety causing situations like 5 times a day.However it really dint help me and i tried really hard.The theory is if you put yourself in situations enough times and challenge your thoughts it should get easier..And my therapist seemed to think that were anxious because we shy away from the situations,but the thing is my anxiety was just as bad if i put myself in the situations or not.And no matter how many times i tried it,it didnt get better or easier.

c.b.t actualy made me worse because my therpaist got angry with me because i turned round and said look im doing what your telling me but im still as anxious.And he was constantly telling me i must be doing somthing wrong then :? Which did my confidence no good because i was really trying.But saying that it was the first time in like 5 years of me being ill that id had therapy and it was like a 10 week crash course.so yeah thats my personal experience of it.

 

[spaz]

[/quote]c.b.t actualy made me worse because my therpaist got angry with me because i turned round and said look im doing what your telling me but im still as anxious.And he was constantly telling me i must be doing somthing wrong then :? Which did my confidence no good because i was really trying.But saying that it was the first time in like 5 years of me being ill that id had therapy and it was like a 10 week crash course.so yeah thats my personal experience of it.[/quote]

That's my experience with CBT too. My psychiatrist says that CBT only really works for anxiety if you combine it with medication. He has had 20 years experience in dealing with anxiety disorders.
I have also done a Psychology major at university and I know alot about CBT and I can tell you that it really only works for people with very mild anxiety. Having said that, it is useful when meds have lowered your anxiety levels- it kind of 'mops up' any remaining anxious thoughts, or helps you deal with better.

 

[Rigil]

c.b.t actualy made me worse because my therpaist got angry with me because i turned round and said look im doing what your telling me but im still as anxious.And he was constantly telling me i must be doing somthing wrong then :? Which did my confidence no good because i was really trying.But saying that it was the first time in like 5 years of me being ill that id had therapy and it was like a 10 week crash course.so yeah thats my personal experience of it.

That's my experience with CBT too. My psychiatrist says that CBT only really works for anxiety if you combine it with medication. He has had 20 years experience in dealing with anxiety disorders.
I have also done a Psychology major at university and I know alot about CBT and I can tell you that it really only works for people with very mild anxiety. Having said that, it is useful when meds have lowered your anxiety levels- it kind of 'mops up' any remaining anxious thoughts, or helps you deal with better.

Sounds to me like the cognitive aspect was being re-examined somewhat.
That sounds negative, but it's a common problem on both sides of the therapy.
Many males, as an example, will have suppressed fears of ridicule to the point they are not aware of them.
I'm a great example of this.

• I had a "Christian upbringing" in the southern USA.
• I had a father who served in the Air Force.
• I served in the Army as a combat medic.

Bringing up something like "fear of ridicule" in any of those environments could potentially cause ridicule.
To avoid further shame, it gets repressed.
Little fibs are made to avoid certain situations or to explain certain behaviors, and after a time can be a part of one's perception.
I was just stopping at "scared of people" and unable to answer "why" in therapy.
Needless to say, exposure therapy wasn't going well until I could answer why.
Although, it did allow my thoughts to slow enough that I could pick out things I didn't realize were there.
Repression can be a healthy mechanism, and I want it clear there's no blame meant by suggesting it's a possibility.
"Getting stuck" is a symptom of a much bigger problem, but not with the patient.
It's also a result of a field of medicine being stretched beyond it's limits.
Things can get rushed when "there's so many patients, so little time".
CBT shouldn't happen in a hurry, but the strained state of the psychiatric field almost requires it.

 

[Iceman31]

Hi.

I woudn't mind checking out ACT. There will always be critics of any approach.

I've have social anxiety for several years. Strangely, I didn't have it as a child or early teenager. I developed in high school. I went through periods where I just would avoid certain situations. There were times where I actually thought it was going to go away. Well, it did not. It has gotten much worse in the past few years. I'm unemployed because of it. I can't do what I am called to do in life, which is to go abroad to teach English as a foreign language.

I went abroad a few years ago to do my Master's degree in French translation. I did very well. I had SA symptoms then but they seemed manageable and much less severe than they are now.

Nowadays, I'm back in my hometown in the US with horrible SA. Running into certain people who make uncomfortable trigger panic attacks. Being asked certain questions by others can also trigger them. I dread job interviews or even the thought of speaking in a group like I used to do years without much problems years ago (even enjoyed it). What's so bizarre about it all, is that I'm not even a shy person. I never was.

The only drug that ever helped mere were beta blockers, but the doctor refused to give them to me anymore. He said that it wasn't good for a young person to use them regularly.

So, I will consider ACT. I spent a lot of money on a few online programs which did nothing for me but rip me off.