View Full Version : CBT - All It's Cracked Up To Be?
A lot of people are “bigging up” CBT on here and some people seem to claim it is the holy grail of all therapies. My own experience with it has been less than productive and I gave up on it after three or four sessions having gained no benefit from it whatsoever. My own belief is that if something works for you as an individual then great, the ends justify the means and I know many people on this site swear by it. I just don't “get” it. When I had the sessions I was never able to pinpoint what my thoughts were and tie them down – meaning the therapist had very little to work on.
I would just like to know what other people's experiences are with CBT and whether they think it's really all it's cracked up to be. I found myself agreeing with some of the points raised by Dr Oliver James in this article: http://www.psychminded.co.uk/news/news2009/march09/oliver-james-cbt003.htm but I could also understand some of the counter-arguments given to defend it.
Be interested to hear your comments.
macc noodle
21-12-11, 13:12
Robinbrum
I think that there is a wide diversity of experience across the spectrum on treatment via CBT.
Many, like yourself, have given up very early in the therapy and derived no benefit from it, others have gone the course and gained strategies and insight that has helped them no end with their problems.
Personally, having just emerged from 6 months of almost weekly CBT for health anxiety, gen anx and panic attacks, I feel released from the prison I had found myself in and a new self belief that practising my strategies and being mindful of the therapy that I can keep myself well.
Yes, there will be blips but armed as I am, I feel that I can overcome the problems that may present and as long as I persist with that self belief and not fall into old ways, I will be fine.
I feel a million times better than I did a year ago that is for sure.
On the flip side, I guess it does depend on your state of mind and willingness to commit to trying something that may seem very odd and a waste of time - yes I too trod that particular path about 2 months into the therapy but decided not to giveup althought I could see no benefit at that time!
CBT is difficult and requires determination and strength to engage in the activities being asked of you because ultimately you are being forced to face the problems and that in itself does actually make you feel worse for a time !
I would say to anyone offered it by the doc. - go for it, try it and see where it takes you - what have you got to lose and I know what you have to gain.
Macc Noodle
xxx
I'm glad it's working for you and all other people who benefit from CBT. From what I read though a lot of the benefits are short-term. Is it really possible by re-programming your brain that you can somehow "think" your way out of conditions such as anxiety and depression? I would seriously KILL for something like that:D. But my problems are multi-layered and highly complex in nature. How you strip away all those layers and get to the root of something that has dogged me over 30 years I do not know. My own theory is that CBT is successful at focusing on very specific issues but not so great at coloring in the grey areas that are so difficult to define. Even one CBT practitioner admitted to me that it is as much kidology as psychology. I kept picking holes in everything she said but I realise that is also part of my problem. Something in me is very resistantto CBT which I'm sure by now you've gathered!
You are sceptical. That is understandable. I think some people suffer with bad anxiety as a kind of PTSD, as they may have had some forgotten trauma as a child. Freudian psychoanalysis involves finding this memory through hypnosis and releasing it. Naturally, when you know the cause of your anxiety, you can accept and start to sort it out. If you try to press down you ways of thinking and habits when you, deep down, know there is something that needs sorting out, yes you will resist it.
Also, if you are seeing "the holes", you might not have a very confident therapist maybe? It isn't one of those therapies where the therapist has a load of strategies under their belt and they are going to indoctirnate you in some way to cover up the problems. It is a very honest, if not the most honest therapy. THats why we all reccomend it here :)
But my thoughts are that you need to try very hard to see where your anxiety started and map out how you mind is working.
Hi Robinbrum,
I guess it's how you view it, I don't see CBT as a cure, I see it as a coping tool.
Granted a lot of the stuff was irrelevant to my personal issues. Most peoples issues are multi-layered and complex in nature; I guess I just used some aspects of the therapy and adjusted the theory accordingly. Maybe this isn't the right time for you to attempt this, if you are resistant to it and picking holes in it rather than looking for what can get from it to assist you? Perhaps it is something for you to try again in the future? Who knows, everyone is different and what works for one person doesn't work for someone else; we are all different with different life experiences and reactions to them?
I hope you find the treatment that works for you soon so that you can travel your journey through life in a more positive way.
Lynnann:flowers:
Thanks to both of you for those valuable contributions. My past is very unhappy and damaged me as a person, no doubt about it. I know the causes but they're boxed away and dealt with, if you know what I mean. There's a chemical issue which I'm trying to address (have been unsuccessfully for many years) which makes my mood very low and anxiety at a constantly high level. I'm unhappy about personal circumstances which I seem powerless to change. I don't know how CBT can change that but as you pointed out Lynann, maybe it could help me cope better.
I lost all respect for my CBT practitioner when she set me an exercise challenging me not to think about a pink elephant. It proved nothing to me at all.
Hi Robinbrum,
My past was very unhappy and has damaged me; I can't change that, I have had to learn and live with it. The future is now what I am looking towards and it has taken me a very long time to get to this point. Boxing it away was the method I used before to cope with the past; when another incident happened it caused all the boxes to come tumbling down. Everything spilled out, it has taken a few years to get things back under control.
I think the pink elephant challenge would have made me sceptical as well lol.
You can approach your GP about CBTand do it online from home in your own time; I set myself challenges within the programme, have a chat with them? As said it is just a tool, another coping mechanism to utilise?
Lynnann:flowers:
I will have a look again at the CBT and try approaching it with an open mind. At the age of 45 I feel that my personality is pretty much set in stone and it's almost impossible to imagine myself as carefree and happy-go-lucky. But I guess I'm conditioned to feel that way which CBT can possibly address.
theharvestmouse
22-12-11, 17:32
The CBT has helped me to a certain extent but you have to do a lot yourself, like you said its difficult to change certain things about you as a person but maybe by learning how to cope with anxiety you can do things that maybe you would not normally do because of anxiety.
Here's a thought...
What if you don't know what the thought is?
---------- Post added at 03:54 ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 ----------
you're just pissing in the wind...
eight days a week
31-12-11, 05:28
Robin, just my humble opinion, but give up even thinking about CBT - it's not for you. Not because it doesn't work, but because you obviously have no interest in belief in it, and expect it to have some effect after just three or four sessions - to me this is bizarre.
If you were even halfway motivated to help yourself you would give it way, way longer than that, and not be questioning it after what is basically just enough time to have an introduction to it.
All the best to you anyway :)
I was just having a bad day and I chose to off-load here.
Maybe not a good idea, I'm just having a hard time right now.
When i had Psychotherapy, my therapist said that CBT didn't work for me.
Yeah. it's important to point out that there are other therapies, it just seems very hard to get them on the NHS.
Yes, CBT can be frustrating. It requires a complete challenge to your life long behaviours & thought patterns which is scary at times. It is so much easier to default back to the known. This is also where I struggle most.
I have had many sessions on this therapy, some enlightening, some not, but the central to all this is the need to examine yourself and your core beliefs. This takes a fair old time.
Robin, give it time. My therapist once told me " You are what you think, and whilst you think the same, expect the same results"
Hope you feel better soon
Robinbrum, feel free to rant. NMP isn't just a place where we all feel perfect all the time and nobody will have exactly the same experiences as everyone else.
Having read your post I feel that perhaps your therapist is a bit lacking, but I get the impression you are also sort of missing the point. The exercise about "pink elephants" is purely a light hearted and non-threatening way to point out one of the basic principles of anxious and negative thoughts.
When you have a negative thought, for example "I'll never get better", then depending on your level of anxiety at that moment and your ability to cope with distressing throughts, a general defence reaction is to recoil from the thought. We reject it. A person in good health, ie someone who is recovering from anxiety or does not have a clinical anxiety disorder, would most likely dismiss such a thought: "I've been ill before, I know I'll get better now."
However a person who is suffering from anxiety or depression etc, or who is tired or in a very low mood, or simply doesn't have any effective coping strategies, might find such a thought distressing out of all proportion to reality.
So "What if I never get better?" is not a pointless question for them, instead it is more a statement of impending doom, and it may provoke great distress. As part of your automatic defensive reaction, you attempt to push the thought aside and forget about it; but because of the state you are in, the thought "sticks". By attempting to avoid thinking about it, you think of nothing BUT.
"I mustn't think about the anxiety. I mustn't wonder if I'm gonna get better." Thinking those things automatically triggers the very thoughts you are trying to avoid.
A fundamental part of CBT is to help you train yourself to think in a different way. If you're 30 years old, that means you need to re-train 30 years of thinking in your unique way, a way that is all you know and is comfortable and familiar to you. However, the "comfort" and "familiarity" are a false blessing. They re-inforce the anxiety and depression you feel by keeping you cocooned in a safe little bubble which is incompatible with negative life events. So when something bad happens, it interferes with your little world and causes chaos.
CBT aims to give you a new set of skills: to identify your core problems, many of which will either be hidden from your conscious thoughts or forgotten over the years; new thought patterns to replace the old unhelpful ones; a sense of confidence in yourself. There are many other things CBT can help you achieve and it can help people to recover permanently from anxiety, depression, OCD and numerous other problems. There is plenty of scientific evidence to support this.
CBT won't work for everyone but you have to at least try. It is hard going, very tough, and once you are strong enough it exposes you to fears so crucial to the illness that your mind has disguised them or deliberately kept them from you in order to protect you. At some point this protection actually became a part of the problem, and now you need to get in there and have a good clear out, because you don't need your subconscious to keep doing its own thing; you need to start looking out for yourself.
ive read this thread with interest, and i am sorry to go against the majority but i have tried CBT all the way to the end and it didnt work for me.
I did belive in it, the concept and the help and relief if could give, however as a few have said i couldnt find the route or base line/thought in the end, sometimes there is no answer to how you are and sometimes you are just someone who has problems that can be managed but not cured.
ElizabethJane
05-01-12, 21:45
I tried CBT Bluebel and it did not work for me either. I was too depressed to do the 'homework' and tasks. Findings were done in a group setting and I just could not participate fully. That was some time ago and I am well on the way to being fully recovered. I have read 'CBT for Dummies' so I know the philosophy behind it and use some of the techniques if negative thoughts and thinking are preventing me from doing what I want to do. Nothing is completely wasted and you might find that you are able to use the techniques at a later date. EJ
brainfogette
06-01-12, 00:15
I've had 8 sessions of CBT and at the beginning after 2-3 sessions I really thought what is the point? I couldn't bear sitting there talking about myself and my issues and what was going through my mind and putting it all in a diagram. But now I'm at the stage where I feel like I really can correct the thought processes I have that crush my sense of self worth...and I talk non stop! It's been a long rubbish road though, the first therapist I saw (whilst on the waitlist for CBT) was just irritating, perhaps I felt she couldn't understand my issues as she was a lot younger than me, I think you really need to have a therapist who can inspire you with belief, otherwise all the theory or practice in the world won't work. If you'd told me 8 weeks ago that I would come home from work feeling/thinking/saying that I'd done an amazing job that day I'd have seriously laughed in your face...
Of course it won't work for everyone though, that's why there are alternatives to CBT :yesyes:
theharvestmouse
06-01-12, 15:57
I'm coming to the end of my CBT, I went with without too much expectation. Some people seem to think CBT will cure you, that's not the case. With CBT the emphasis is on the patient to do things that will help combat the anxiety. Most of it is down to the person to change their thought behaviour patterns and force themselves to do the things that they find hard.
I'm not saying its been a huge success for me, its helped me but I won't know just how much until I start doing more things, which I'm going to have to start doing now if I want to see any progress.
Robinbrum, feel free to rant. NMP isn't just a place where we all feel perfect all the time and nobody will have exactly the same experiences as everyone else.
Having read your post I feel that perhaps your therapist is a bit lacking, but I get the impression you are also sort of missing the point. The exercise about "pink elephants" is purely a light hearted and non-threatening way to point out one of the basic principles of anxious and negative thoughts.
When you have a negative thought, for example "I'll never get better", then depending on your level of anxiety at that moment and your ability to cope with distressing throughts, a general defence reaction is to recoil from the thought. We reject it. A person in good health, ie someone who is recovering from anxiety or does not have a clinical anxiety disorder, would most likely dismiss such a thought: "I've been ill before, I know I'll get better now."
However a person who is suffering from anxiety or depression etc, or who is tired or in a very low mood, or simply doesn't have any effective coping strategies, might find such a thought distressing out of all proportion to reality.
So "What if I never get better?" is not a pointless question for them, instead it is more a statement of impending doom, and it may provoke great distress. As part of your automatic defensive reaction, you attempt to push the thought aside and forget about it; but because of the state you are in, the thought "sticks". By attempting to avoid thinking about it, you think of nothing BUT.
"I mustn't think about the anxiety. I mustn't wonder if I'm gonna get better." Thinking those things automatically triggers the very thoughts you are trying to avoid.
A fundamental part of CBT is to help you train yourself to think in a different way. If you're 30 years old, that means you need to re-train 30 years of thinking in your unique way, a way that is all you know and is comfortable and familiar to you. However, the "comfort" and "familiarity" are a false blessing. They re-inforce the anxiety and depression you feel by keeping you cocooned in a safe little bubble which is incompatible with negative life events. So when something bad happens, it interferes with your little world and causes chaos.
CBT aims to give you a new set of skills: to identify your core problems, many of which will either be hidden from your conscious thoughts or forgotten over the years; new thought patterns to replace the old unhelpful ones; a sense of confidence in yourself. There are many other things CBT can help you achieve and it can help people to recover permanently from anxiety, depression, OCD and numerous other problems. There is plenty of scientific evidence to support this.
CBT won't work for everyone but you have to at least try. It is hard going, very tough, and once you are strong enough it exposes you to fears so crucial to the illness that your mind has disguised them or deliberately kept them from you in order to protect you. At some point this protection actually became a part of the problem, and now you need to get in there and have a good clear out, because you don't need your subconscious to keep doing its own thing; you need to start looking out for yourself.
Well put. I really understand the way you have explained it. Very informative. I totally get the ''when you tell yourself not to think something, you think about it more'' very logical!
Well put. I really understand the way you have explained it. Very informative. I totally get the ''when you tell yourself not to think something, you think about it more'' very logical!
It's those pink elephants again! I get the theory believe me but I am struggling to put it into practice. I have started an online course and I am determined to finish it but finding time right now isn't easy. My concentration is very poor so I'm doing it in gentle, easy steps and with an genuinely open mind.
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