Something my therapist said

[jackdobs]

Hi all,

it's been a while since I posted here but I wanted some advice. I just finished my first Live Therapy session and the session generally went well. The guy was a little bit awkward and perhaps not the most at-ease person (if that makes any sense?!), but he was a great listener as you can imagine.

However, I was a bit concerned by something he said. He said the CBT will aim to not make me run away from the idea of cancer (which is what all my fears centre around), but I should try and think about it and think about how I would cope if it was cancer.

Why on earth is this? I was quite happy before he said that...

[Fishmanpa]

IMO, he means it's about facing the fear and not allowing it to cause the visceral reaction it currently causes. Depending on the therapist, some use exposure as a tool to help you better cope. Let's face it, you can't hide from cancer. So, learning to deal with it when exposed, regardless of why, is part of the healing process.

It would be the same if your fear were spiders or snakes and getting to the point of holding one without freaking out ;)

Positive thoughts

[Alice1]

The truth is 1/3 of us will get cancer. But, with today's care, and especially for free in the UK it is by far not the worst way to die.
It is hard, but what your therapist might be trying to get at is that it does not warrant living in terror over?
I unfortunately have similar fears and keep justifying them by telling myself I am too 'young' to die or get cancer, when this is obviously nonsense. There are no rules, we create them.

[Worrywart528]

Good god..... I don't know if that would help me at all OP! My thoughts are about getting cancer, how I will cope, how bad my life will become, how people will distance themselves from me, how I will end up alone and in hospice..... Holy crap... I would like to forget about diseases forever.

[Liviguy]

A councillor I had on CBT told me more or less the same thing. Told me that what if I did get cancer? Life is not over on diagnosis.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think the best thing you can do is ask your therapist what they mean. If you are unclear on an exercise in CBT, it won't work for you.

Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy is the advised treatment for OCD and it's an element of CBT. It works BUT it relies on having a hierarchy in place to advance you through lower levels fears in a graduated way until you reach the biggest fear - and then it should go an extra step beyond to ensure effectiveness. Usually a therapist will want you to remain in that feared situation until your anxiety reduces by 50%. If it doesn't it may need repetition until it does or they insert a "stepping stone" to get you closer to it.

I don't think it is helpful to tell people to do things like this unless there is a structure. What it could be is a Behavioural Experiment where the therapist wants you to expose yourself to a fear to then report back how it affected you.

But the answer is clear, we don't know and can only offer suggestions to what is going on in your therapist's head.