Posted by raisinb on February 14, 2012, at 14:47:22
In reply to Re: depressive emotions » Raisinb, posted by SLS on February 14, 2012, at 14:06:35
Sounds like I'd make the same point as Violet. I think CBT can actually exacerbate certain issues, rather than helping. Certainly that's the case for me.
I've tried it various times for various lengths of time and always come to the conclusion it isn't for me. It's too simplistic, for one; my brain doesn't respect the "identify problematic thinking patterns and fix them" approach. That's partly intellectual snobbery. I've spent years analyzing and fighting with my thoughts and emotions; I dreamed up the main tenets of CBT and a million variations before I even heard of it. None of it ever changed how I felt, and frankly, I think it's dangerous for severely depressed people to suggest that merely changing your thoughts will help you. Telling a person who already believes that she's deeply damaged and thus always wrong and unable to trust herself that her problems are because she is "faulty" in her thinking is not *wrong* per se; it's simply unhelpful because it exacerbates her deeper issues. Telling her to fix her faulty thinking puts her in an extremely unhelpful, endless, crazy-making struggle against herself.
This is where Marsha Linehan is a freaking genius. She realized all this, altered CBT to DBT, a system that can accept ambiguity, paradoxical versions of truth, and validates the patient while moving her towards change. Keep in mind, this is aimed towards people who have borderline-type issues (which I certainly do, even if I don't qualify for the personality disorder dx). She says in the beginning that there was a whole group of patients that she dutifully applied CBT to, and it just didn't work.
poster:raisinb
thread:1010125
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120212/msgs/1010234.html