Posted by alexandra_k on January 30, 2004, at 3:25:42
In reply to Re: Cognative Behavioral Therapy, posted by gardenergirl on January 26, 2004, at 21:42:12
Sigh. Yes, the only kind of therapy I can get funded for is CBT although I have also done DBT (dialectical cognitive-behaviour therapy) which I have found to be a much improved varient.
The (simplified) thought is that there is an activating event (A) which happens (such as losing your job or somebody doing something); and you have some sort of emotional response, or maladaptive behaviour (C). The thought is that C doesn't follow of any necessity from A - what goes in the middle is all your 'thought distortions'. So you are supposed to work out all your maladaptive thoughts, and challenge them so you will never do C again.
Sorry if I sound slightly cynical. My issue is that theorists (when pressed) say that it is not that B CAUSES C (because of the problems with mental causation) - but they do seem to slip into this way of thinking a fair bit. My issue is that those thoughts aren't running through my mind before I have an automatic emotional response or act impulsively - though of course they sound pretty correct to me now that you mention them.
You are supposed to INFER B from A and C, and then you are supposed to use that very inference to explain why C happened. That is just circular.
Apparantly many borderlines find CBT to be 'invalidating'. I figure that considering most of us are highly sensitive people who have been abused our nervous systems are set to 'very reactive' and thus our extreme emotional responses are justified and to be expected given the way we are wired up in conjunction with our reinforcement history of abuse. That is not to say that we cannot learn to change this through relaxation training etc. But I do have issues with people requiring us to JUSTIFY our emotional responses with appeal to which 'faulty cognitions' we endorse when they don't occur to you particularly till the T mentions them.
My 2 cents worth...
Maybe have a chat with your T and ask her to tell you what the point of the exercise is, it sounds like you are trying really hard to work and be cooperative - good on ya :)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:305819
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040123/msgs/307172.html