Jill,

I found my T via the Psychology Today site. I found it to be really helpful.

If CBT isn't your thing, I'm sure you can find someone more psychodynamically oriented.

Keep us posted.
Russ

Hi there Jill

CBT is a REALLY dirty word in my books. While it might have its benefits (does it? well I’m sure it does, different strokes and all that...) I have found Ts who use CBT even as only one aspect of their approach, are generally the ones who haven’t a clue how to deal with the emotional side of things, they tend to keep pushing for and even suggesting solutions and answers and spend a lot of session time talk talk talking.

He he I loved your comment to T - how can an irrational mind recognize irrational thoughts. But that’s what bothers me about CBT in the first place, it’s complacent assumption that somehow in ‘reality’ there is an expected and generally known way of thinking ‘correctly’ and that to do CBT effectively the client has to always refer to someone else’s external reality in order to have a yardstick against which to measure their own so-called irrational thoughts - in other words, client’s own reality must ipso facto be wrong, incorrect, out of touch with objective reality. Which can work for a bit in a superficial sort of way, but I don’t think anyone can change their way of thinking without first changing the reasons for thinking that way in the first place. There that’s my polite view of CBT. My real view is that it sucks bigtime, is highly dangerous, is a very effective tool for controlling people and a real get-out clause for therapists to avoid their having to deal with the real problems of their clients. (Sorry to anyone here who finds the CBT approach useful, these are just my personal opinions and experience of it.)

Trying to find a good T is I’m finding, an absolute nightmare. Their approach is not always a good indication of how good (or bad) they’re going to be. If you liked T3 yet it shows CBT as her main tool, that may not mean that she won’t be right for you (actually I’m hesitant to say that because that’s what I thought about my now ex-T - his main approach was CBT but he was quite happy agreeing not to use it with me when I asked, and asked, and asked... he just couldn’t help it, with the best will in the world his natural style was to keep coming back to talking about, to intellectualizing and rationalizing everything.)

A bit like you I blithely assumed that all therapy was supposed to be client-focused. WRONG. I have come across therapists who were more concerned with imposing their therapeutic model onto me than letting me be who I was (Transactional Analysis springs to mind, as well as CBT and I have to say it, a purely psychodynamic approach as well). A purely person-centred therapist (the Rogerian approach) was the sort I initially looked for - but for me that didn’t work, therapists I had whose approach was only client-centred tended to let me witter on about anything and everything in sessions with no direction, no guidance, no relevant questions and when they did get involved it was to parrot what I’d said. Therapists describing themselves as ‘humanistic, integrative, AND person-centred,’ are the ones I tended to go for.

Having said all that (at length lol), at the end of the day no matter what a T’s approach, it’s how you get on with them that’s going to be the decisive factor in therapy working for you.

Good luck with interviewing T3 - I hope it goes really well and that she is the right one for you.


LL

ohhhh!!! thank you ALLLLLL!!!!

i just interviewed one on the phone, and man, this is so essential to the process, her 'paperwork' looked good, but all this adult talk and logic and like you say 'intellectualizing' just makes me think i am unjustified, just like my mom!

i am meeting with one today that sounds pretty good on the phone, her paperwork has that dirty little word CBT on it, but, whatever, she was good on the phone.

i hate this process, and i think CBT SUCKS like you said...should be a four letter word..FCBT (sorry! but then, i am four, and no one hears me anyway!!)

I went to a CBT person once and she said she would sit me down in an office chair and make me spin around and around to simulate the experience of anxiety. I thought she was joking. She wasn't.

yes, i went to T3 today, pretty good, keeps a loose watch, and i was there 2 hours, told her not to pull that CBT stuff on me, she tried a bit and i shut it down. it IS kinda nice empowering that kid inside to NOW call the shots. HUGE validation for all my stuff, again, amazed at my 'resilience', as am i....i know it is huge, and a good sign, etc. etc. etc. but...I KNOW THAT...tell me something i don't know. she did say one good thing, that when i was little and would get into trouble, like once for saying the word 'funny-looking' and was sent to my room, crying, feeling wronged but moreover feeling ashamed that i would invent a word that wasn't real and shaming myself for doing it...anyway, her point was that i saw i could control 'being bad' and the coming punishment, so i reasoned, as i kid, i could control being GOOD. so i tried REALLY REALLY hard to be good, and since i never got the expected 'reward', i just thought i wasn't 'good enough' so i just tried harder and HARDER AND HARDER...and have been all my LIFE trying to please them. but, y'no, the house of cards all fell down...anyway, not a bad thought pattern that i hadn't really looked at that way.

T3 seems good, major 'flooding' after almost two hours and i suddenly just had to pack it up and leave...i almost ran out of there, i just hit major overload, and escaped (with paying of course, just MAJOR SHUT DOWN LOCK DOWN MODE)...do y'all ever have that, where you literally can't hear another word??

wow, we are in for a ride, but she seems to know how to drive...she thinks i 'minimize' my abuse and won't call it all by it's real name (esp. the sexual abuse)...no, i am still camped out on denial on that bit of my memory bank. (i told her to quit it with the CBT words...i hate them, they SUCK!)

i have a sneeking suspicion T3 is going to ask me to color with my left hand (am right handed)...i told her on the phone i thought all that stuff was weird and it wouldn't work for me, i am a major cynic (sp?) and i really didn't think that would work, and to not try logic on me either, Dr. Sleepy tried that, y'no, the 'you have a great life, why can't you just be happy in it?" line? i told him 'nice try, but that just makes me feel even more guilty'...

c'mon, do you think coloring is going to get me anywhere...she didn't try it, i told her i'd rather be hypnotised (sp?)...that would be cool, don't you think??

just rambling...

coloring, yeah, right, at $2 a minute....gmab. yes, back on thursday for more...

i am intrigued...what comes out?? do you really expel memories you didn't know you had? i can't believe that?? i seem to think i am so on top of myself that that could not happen, but i am ready to spill it all out there!! i am sick of peeling off the bandaid...YANK IT!! come on!!! i can take it!! really? new stuff?? hmmmm, what other 'weird therapies' really open up this steel trap??

bring it on, T3, i may surprise myself, but i am dying to jump on it!! this tippy toe (shit) really bores me, and yes, i know this is the super confident adult talking, and the kid sure got sensory overload today, but it is like living on the edge, and i am intrigued, and think/know that i can call it quits if it gets too much....but right now, a clonozipan into my evening, i say, bring it on.

(((really, what comes out?? stuff you really don't consciously know?? i would, and could, be amazed)))

y'all are probably right, i have much childhood naiveity, and childhood 'go team' enthusiasm. but i can sure crater. this is probably as she said disassociation and compartmentalization which lets me talk about some of this trauma as if it was someone else. i know that is how i got through, and i guess that all my selves need to unite into one.

this disassociation is intrigued with these mysterious processes, and i, maybe naively, think i have all my cards on the table, that every thing is out, i mean, we have emo abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect and sexual abuse. so what else IS there?? just more evidence of it? more examples?? i don't know, i guess those can be equally hurting to have more of the same, even though i know, in 18 years, from my earliest memory or story about my baby days, it was all bad.

then, there is probably some self punishment i am looking for? eeww, probably true, i guess i ought to tell T3 that, wow, just realizing that now, y'no, you always knew you were bad and deserved punishment, and maybe i am still looking for it. even punishment was attention back then. wow, an new chapter and layer. INSIGHTFUL, friends...i guess it feeds that 'tough' self that can take ANYTHING mom can dish out...DEFIANT!! 'you can't hurt me!! see, i don't FEEL PAIN!!' oh, yes, it is already working, and i haven't even colored.

hmmm, i think slow is safer. that fanciful confident adult is kindof mutilating the forgotten kid.

yep, i think i discovered something. poor, poor kid. and she really was a good kid. forgotten, unloved, felt like a burden, made to be tough and just 'take it'.

y'all are good and helpful, and i can see y'all have been there, too.

(((((y'all))))

i think i might ask her today if we could color. the child is so lonely. and the anger is so huge. but mostly, the child is so lonely and unheard.

i really look bi-polar, and that scares me. i don't have big chunks of time i can't account for, i do have different names for the different 'me's', i can account for that time, and it is spent in trance-like prayer and thought, or on here, or walking from the washer/dryer to the plants to water to the computer to the kitchen, etc. i think that is normal?? i can be sunny and yellow, and crying and black feeling God doesn't even like me, to rejected coz no one is posting anything new and i am the only one who has to look to the internet for friends that understand and can relate, to being a great mom and wife (rarely), to trying to dodge an on-coming panic attack. is that bi-polar or just another adult child of a f-ed up dysfunction childhood...or are they the same thing.

my adult knows, but my child is just peering over looking for love and stuff. i jump right in to things thinking it is the end all be all, like dr. sleepy, and am so crushed when reality that others have lives and stuff sets in. i am not ragging on y'all at all!!! y'all are wonderful, and are patterning healthy habits of not escaping into here too much. get something healthy (like make dinner) done and reward myself with a visit to this place. small steps, wean the attachment, i have been weaning myself all my life though, and i wish i could just be held. i gotta grow up, i am a drain, SOOOOOOOOOOOO glad y'all don't know me, i would be too ashamed to admit this stuff if i knew you. one hour and seven minutes til T3 ("maybe mommy")!!!!! i hope i am not disappointed. see how i put all my eggs in one hopeful basket and set myself up for disaster. trainwreck set-up and programming. CBT ought to have a name for that...((('SICK AND HOPELESS', i am afraid))))

well, three hours later (man i love when they have time for you, that pull it all out and pack it up neatly in an hour is made for people with issues not NEARLY as deep as mine!!)) and i think she could be mommy. offered me a hug after some creative metaphorizing and tears. i declined, said maybe next time. she is eye-balling a clock, btw. but, thats ok.

i don't know, she said some therapists might be afraid of me, but she is not. she thought she could handle me.

bachelors, masters and doctorate in psychology, so she should have the tools and years in practice. makes me realize how empty the toolbox was on T1, this lady seems to have the big guns, and stays awake, so that meets my criteria...more later, dh surfaced.

Hey Jill,

Sorry I haven't been on to welcome you to the forums, so welcome! Lately it seems as if my brain is just in a fog, thus rendering me completely useless. Anyway, I did just want to say that I have been reading some, and I'm so glad that you had a positive session with this T. It definitely sounds like you deserve someone like the T that you've found, and I'm so happy you did.

Just an aside, though - schooling doesn't necessarily dictate how good a T may or may not be. All that matters is how well you connect with the T.

Oh, and as far as the original purpose of this thread goes - um, yes? In my opinion, there's only a very small amount of problems out there that CBT can successfully treat, and even then... I've been lucky enough to never have had to deal with a strictly CBT therapist, but from what I've read and learned, I don't know if I'd touch one with a ten foot pole.

c

Hmm, this seems to be an old thread but it's interesting to me.

I've known people who have gotten real benefit out of CBT. But I don't think it would do much for me. I am already capable of generating rational thoughts and identifying which of my thoughts and feelings are irrational. But the irrational feelings are still there, tormenting me anyway.

My T claims on her website that she uses CBT, among other approaches and yet I cannot seem to locate that anywhere in what she's actually done with me. In fact she is always trying to talk me back into feelings of mine which I've already pointed out are irrational. She says things like, "Yes, but you still felt that way." Once when I got really angry at her for no reason and then snapped out of it, I told her I felt like I was back in reality. She said, "Well, a different reality, because those feelings you had were still real."

Hey Muff. I do agree. I'm not sure I agree with CBT and I have read somewhere that for people who are deeply hurt/traumatized, CBT does not always work. In fact, talk therapy is preferred and has a higher rate of success in the long term. I think I read that CBT sort of boosted people for about a year until they went downhill again. I've tried a lot of things; heavy meditation, 'pop positive' psychology, taichi reading etc but I actually felt that I was moving away from myself more than anything.

My anxieties and fears and worries are to do with how I was brought up. I was on anti-depressants but I stopped. I didn't like what they did to my body. I'm not sure about them. They have credibility but it's the whole what came first, the chicken or the egg. Sometimes I want to go back on them because my mind winds up with worry and I scare myself.

BUT I think by far the most powerful effect is to face pain with no shortcuts. Religion, anti-depressants, pop psychology are all too easily offered as shortcuts.

I'm very unsure about where I am with myself right now but psychotherapy definitely has helped me define what some of my issues are. It is a constant struggle as I overworry and suffer from a high degree of social anxiety. All this makes everything confusing but I think, slowly, slowly, with the monitoring and understanding of how I attach to my therapist and how my patterns are with her, I understand myself bit by bit.

I get worried that I have too much pain to deal with but I have to suspend self-analysis sometimes because the worry seems to infuse with it and can scare me.

v

Hey Muff, your right. Anger is not a scary thing. I do get periodically scared of my own anger. There was once a phase in my life where I wanted to extinguish my anger because I believed that everything could be handled without anger. It was not a good move. I moved away from myself rather than towards.

If we've been conditioned from childhood to be a certain way then it will take good time to change that conditioning. Negative traits that are conditioned need time and patience to change around. It's not easy but it's not impossible.

b

Hey Muff, thanks for that. I do have a lot of worry in me, social anxiety was something I struggled with for ages. Lately I'm learning to relax with it.

My therapist knows its within me as well. Time's a good healer as long as we assist it. Merry Christmas! x

v

Thank you for this post! I had to take a psych class as part of my master's degree (acupuncture) and it was CBT-based. Not only did I intensely dislike the class for the same reasons Lamplighter mentioned, but no other therapeutic models were discussed- this guy was most certainly not Rogerian. The danger here is that laypeople who are training to be healers- acupuncturists..and will be dealing with patients that may be seeing them specifically for help with emotional problems, (or present with emotional challenges along with their physical complaints- it is a holistic healing method after all) ...will think that this man's CBT approaach is the be-all end-all of the therapeutic process. I was feeling my depression intensely one day, but showed up for class anyway. He started in with his lecture on depression. (lucky me)...describing it as being like "being on a merry-go-round of feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in your problems and not knowiing how to get off" Wow. Obviously this guy had never experienced deep depression before. (Please note that it is our job to refer patients to qualified therapists when we see the need, not to try to practice psychotherapy, that is unethical and illegal)

There are so many different manifestations/shades/nuances of depression, and mine, at the time was more existentially-based. This man was obviously not equipped with the intellegence it takes to deal with that kind of (existential) depression, (either that or he was too intellectually lazy to make an effort) nor the open-mindedness it takes to really, truly help another human being.

I think CBT would be a great tool to use in my personal training business for weight loss clients, if done respectfully. But also knowing that there could be even deeper issues that I would not be able to address. This is why I will refer out to qualified therapists.

My T resonates with the work of Yalom (Irving) and I have been reading "The Gift of Therapy" He sees therapy as a here and now interaction between 2 human beings, and they will be affected by and learn from each other. My T has recently admitted that he learns from me, which allows me to be more open and admit my own shortcomings. I don't think I would want to open up and trust a CBT person.

The take-home message I got from CBT is that is not geared for intelligent and sensitive people, (the kind of people I see on this website)From what I learned, it seems best to leave this type of therapy to the zombies who are too lazy to think or feel much of anything and need to have every damn thing spelled out for them by someone in a position of "authority" or they can't function.

Just my take, again, no offense to those who have found it useful in some situations. I myself intensely dislike it.

Jill: reading your posts, and I'm really glad you found a good therapist. It makes such a huge difference! I find it cool that you have insights by writing about it here, and feel honored that you share that with us, really.

muff: thanks for your thoughts on anger, it is very helpful to me right now! I really bothers me when therapists pathologize every feeling of anger ...making it all about the "triggers" instead of allowing space for good, clean, anger. Being able to differentiate between justified anger and knee-jerk reactions/triggers based on our own perceptions or projections is part of becoming an emotinally mature adult. Disabling anger altogether seems to me, like a sure way to inhibit wisdom, maturity, and self-sufficiency.

quote:

BUT I think by far the most powerful effect is to face pain with no shortcuts. Religion, anti-depressants, pop psychology are all too easily offered as shortcuts.

Thanks Forgetmenot! Yep, there are no shortcuts, and the road we have chosen is indeed difficult!

c