Posted by badhaircut on November 6, 2003, at 18:02:22
The NYT Magazine (Nov 2 '03 -- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/magazine/02FEAR.html --registration req'd) had an article on David Barlow's anxiety treatments. He's a psychologist at Boston University. His technique is basically flooding with the twist that he PROHIBITS both relaxation techniques and CBT-style cognitive challenges.
He's trying to expand the treatment to depression also. From the article:
-snip-
Barlow is currently working on taking his treatment to those suffering from everything from depression to substance abuse. "It's far too early to tell if this will work," he says. But he has begun treating a small group of depressed patients by teaching them to accept, and even seek out, their sadness. According to Barlow, attempts to suppress painful emotion lie at the heart of most pathology; the struggle involved in suppression only tightens the noose on an already vulnerable neck. So first sit still, Barlow says. Second, begin to act exactly counter to how you feel. ... Third, and most controversial, court the causes of your depression as a means of desensitizing yourself to them. "When you fight your own internal censors, you're giving them too much power," says Reid Wilson, who employs Barlow's methods in his practice. "You're saying they're worth the fight. Guess what? They aren't. There are some limitations to cognitive restructuring, because it's just like teaching relaxation. It sends the message that negative thoughts are bad, can even kill you. We practice the provocative approach of getting a person to confront repeatedly what they fear until they're so used to it that it ceases to mean a thing."
-snip-The suggestion that depressives could try to "accept and even SEEK OUT their sadness" is intriguing to me. Anyone have experience with Barlow's methods?
-bhc
poster:badhaircut
thread:277260
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031030/msgs/277260.html