Posted by Tabitha on July 13, 2016, at 13:10:17
In reply to Re: CBT anyone?, posted by Horse on July 12, 2016, at 20:21:22
> In my experience, depression is a full body thing that hijacks my brain, so I'm curious if there is a more cerebrally provoked depression...? If I am understanding the discussion.
Yes, I also see it as a process that takes over my brain. I like to say "my brain is malfunctioning".
In the past I thought of depression as an unwelcome guest, a liar, a thing with its own voice, which I would try to separate from my own. But I stopped thinking in terms of having multiple voices in there (my true self vs depression). I'd rather think in terms of whether my brain is functioning within workable parameters or not. When it is, then I can have a sense of a reasonably happy, functioning self.
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> A cbt/dbt/no workbook approach has helped me immensely. Like most everyone here, I need medication. At one point I attempted cbt alone, and my excellent therepist at the time said to get on medication. I was crushed at the ime because I felt incurable. But elements of dbt have helped shift my focus and recognize that I have a chronic illness and how the ideas invoked by the belief 'cure' were torture! I think, maybe, cbt/dbt is working on semantic actions that occur during and shape 'experience'Yes, it's so miserable to chase a cure that doesn't exist. Long ago I might have thought I could be cured by this or that therapy. Then I accepted I couldn't be cured, but I still believed I could figure out the things that caused the episodes, thus controlling the progression with my actions. Then I accepted I couldn't find behavioral or environmental causes (this is where I had to part ways with my therapist), but I could find medications that would keep me in indefinite remission. Now, I see that I'll probably need medication tweaks and updates for life, and still have symptoms. At each step, it's a disappointment when it doesn't work out, yet also a relief because it's one less thing to have to keep working, and failing, at doing.
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> My current therapist, whom I feel lucky lucky to have, talks about developing a strong 'witness', and then, for me, develpoing a healthy relationship with her :)I like the concept of Witness better than what my therapist used. With her it was three beings-- inner child (or just "child" after inner child became such a cliche), critical parent, and wise adult. Personally I didn't feel a strong sense of any of those beings, so it felt like trying to force-fit aspects of myself into arbitrary categories. And the idea of those parts having relationships with each other just seemed like elaborate play-acting. It never took hold and felt natural to me.
(I am noticing that the Witness vs Child/Critical Parent/Adult comparison is a bit like the Oneness vs Trinity concepts in christianity.)
poster:Tabitha
thread:1090316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20150512/msgs/1090471.html