Started CBT today [Archive]

ladymillion

26-09-12, 20:09

Well i started CBT today and it went well. The therapist asked me lots of questions about my past, present and what i want for the future. We discussed all my anxiety issues and she told me that these are all normal feelings and i am not the only person to feel these. This made me feel better. I gave her my diary that i have been keeping about my anxiety and we are meeting up again on the 16th of October as i am going on holiday on saturday. She was really nice. I explained that i think i would benefit from medication as well as CBT so she is going to pass this on to my GP and i have to make an appointment to see my GP to discuss this, so fingers crossed i am a step closer to overcoming anxiety!! Has CBT worked for anyone else? With or without medication?

Cazza 7

30-09-12, 21:05

Hi :):)

Welcome i had cbt when i had gad & panic attacks i thought i had a terminal illness caused by worry uti and glue ear and redundancy money worries

Yes it helped me loads i was also on 10mg of citrapram for 18 months
Go for it it will help you to rastionise things 2

NoPoet

30-09-12, 21:15

Hi, CBT has been the best thing I've ever done. If anyone tells you how many sessions they had, ignore them. People with anxiety disorders need as many sessions as they need. Good luck, and keep working in between sessions. It's the hard work that will fix you in the end; the sessions are there to sort out what's going on and how you are going to beat it.

theharvestmouse

30-09-12, 21:43

How many have you had Poet?, 1st time around I had the 6 1hr weekly sessions and then it was over. My therapist went on maternity leave. I'm due to start more CBT this week but this time I don't want a deadline hanging over me, I want to know that I can keep having it until I feel I'm making good progress. I'm willing to pay for it as this is so important.

NoPoet

30-09-12, 23:25

Ok, I have had 15 or 16 sessions over the last 9 months. We started making some headway after the 7th session as that was when I was diagnosed with GAD. Prior to this we had been treating depression and health anxiety. I was pretty screwed up. Now I average 1 session per month.

I've read that effective therapy runs for as many sessions as you've had years of life. I'm 33, so I would therefore need 33 sessions to be "fixed".

Keep the early sessions close together unless you are capable of supporting yourself. Consider phoning the Samaritans or contacting Mind if you find therapy traumatic. CBT can be VERY demanding at the beginning as the scale of the problem becomes apparent. Once your coping strategies are getting up to spec, you won't find CBT so difficult and may start to welcome new breakthroughs, however scary these might be.

However GAD is not my real problem. We're having to start over to deal with probable asperger syndrome. If the anx and depression hadn't been running riot in those days we would have realised sooner. If you're having CBT, it's probably best to write down a list of physical and mental/emotional symptoms, including thought and behaviour patterns that you view as part of the problem. A good therapist will see this as a treasure trove of data. The behavioural side is probably the most important; I spent so long telling my therapist about my thoughts and feelings, but not my obsessional or avoidant behaviour, my social anxieties and so forth. All this stuff builds a pattern to a therapist where we might only see a mess.

ladymillion

18-10-12, 11:37

munchkins

19-10-12, 15:04

Good thing you are under the hands of a professional now. Hope everything will be well when you are done with your CBT sessions.

ladymillion

19-10-12, 20:19

Thank you very much Munchkins, i hope so too

Laura1989

20-10-12, 06:49

Thank you so much for your replies. Sorry i have not been on for a while. It is so good to hear that CBT works. I hope it does for me!! I am attending through the NHS and the therapist has told me we will probable have 6-8 sessions but the maximum is 12 sessions! This does not sound long enough but i hope it will be !! Do most people have a combination of therapy and medication? As i am only having CBT without meds at present x

I've been told 6 sessions, every 2 weeks. My 3rd session is this Monday coming. I am on citalopram and having cbt, and found the two have gone together quite nicely.
The cbt has been pretty rough for the last 2 weeks, the first was the 1hr one where you meet your therapist, and of course I cried as I had to tell her why I'm depressed etc. Then 2 weeks ago, through the booklets, I realised why I'm anxious, and was ale to pinpoint exactly what I'm worried about. So of course, this has preyed on my mind the last 2 weeks and really bothered me, as I struggled to accept the reason I was anxious and work out what to do about.

I'm hoping the next session I have, I get a workbook which will help me start to get around this anxiousness and stop it being so prominent in my mind.

I hope the cbt helps you....keep us posted as to how it goes, I find it interesting seeing how people react to therapy and how it helps different people in different ways :D

STEPHYUNO

20-10-12, 13:52

Hey good luck with the CBT, I had 8 sessions a few months ago and it can help you challenge and look at unhelpful thoughts about yourself, others and past negative experiences in a better light. I am also back on 10mg of citalopram which has a few initial uncomfortable side effects,which some experience worse than others, but generally bearable for most, certainly on 10mg, it can help for anxiety and mild/moderate depression. You could maybe discuss this with your CBT therapist.

My CBT therapist kept reminding me, that it is not the situation that is the problem, but how we percieve it.

I was able to cope better with some irrational thinking and some thoughts from my past that were haunting me.

You will learn to do 'thought records' which help you reason out unhelpful thoughts and replace with more balanced ones, once you learn these techniques you have to put them into practice until it becomes a lasting and automatic process in order to get maximum benefit, (I must admit I have been bit lazy about that lately) but have the book to refer to at anytime as a refresher. The book I was told to purchase is 'Mind over mood' by Dennis Greenberger phd and Christine.A.Padesky phd, (AROUND £10 from amazon and it is a real good idea to have such a book if doing CBT, it will be like a guidefor you as the face to face sessions are only supposed to give you the tools and skills to continue to feel better which I hope you do.

Best wishes, Steph:)

ladymillion

22-10-12, 21:21

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post. I hope it goes well for you Laura, please keep us posted! Steph I will have a look on amazon for that book thanks for advising me about it. Glad the CBT worked for you. Take care :D

ladymillion

23-10-12, 18:59

Thanks guys, i started doing thought records today, so hope they help too