Posted by IsoM on January 29, 2002, at 16:03:51
In reply to Re: my reservations about cbt » jane d, posted by sid on January 29, 2002, at 14:26:24
Sid, you said in your first post here, "So my contention is that people dealing with depression ought to consider many approaches to heal their illness since if one approach does not help, another might. Also, many approaches might help, and together they might help faster."
I've been depressed, had friends who have been depressed, & dealt with it in others so I've seen some of what it can do. My experience is still limited though - there are literally millions with depression & I don't know how each one thinks.
That said, I've noticed that many people can develop distorted thinking patterns if they've been depressed for a long time. Some had a healthy mental outlook before the depression but long-term problems can alter their reasoning processes. Like a person who's had an injury may favour the injuried spot, building up muscle tension & strength on the opposite side. Even after being healed, they may still favour that side. So to with thinking processes.
That's why I thoroughly agree with you in tackling it from all angles. Some people after being initially helped by meds can adjust their own thinking by themselves as they weren't ill for long & no longer need meds. Others will continue to need meds even with improved thinking patterns. And then I've seen others who after initially feeling good from treatment with meds, have refused to change harmful & unhealthy thinking pattern. These people often slip back into depression because they unconsciously sabotage their healing process.
Not that I'm imply to anyone that all those who slip into depression again have unhealthy thinking patterns. There's many reasons a med doesn't continue to work. What I'm saying is IF someone does have destructive thinking patterns, meds will never cure them alone.
What all my 'blithering' boils down to is I agree with a multi-pronged attack on depression & just because one avenue doesn't work, doesn't mean they all won't work. And unfortunately, there's still a few that 'nothing & everything' doesn't help.
poster:IsoM
thread:17445
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020125/msgs/17488.html