Posted by cecilia on June 30, 2006, at 19:23:02
I was in the bookstore the other day and saw a display of David Burns' newest book on anxiety. I leafed through it and just wanted to scream. Just what planet is this idiot from????!!!!!!!!!!! In one of his old books he suggests shame attacking exercises such as calling out the floor numbers on an elevator or sticking a pencil up your nose. In this book he adds a suggestion of going up to people in a restaurant and asking if you can try their food. According to his account when he did this everyone at the table offered him samples of their food and he had a bunch of new friends. Needless to say, I would never in a million years do something like that, but if I did, the people at the table would (if young) make jokes about wasn't I fat enough, I needed their food too, and if older, would assume I was a mentally ill person who wandered in off the street, possibly slip me a few dollars. OK, I know most of CBT isn't this far off from reality, most of it is just positive thinking at a hundred bucks an hour, trying to make yourself believe stuff that isn't true. But, desperate to please their therapist, I think someone could do one of those shame attacking exercises and then go home and shoot themselves. Cecilia
poster:cecilia
thread:663020
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060623/msgs/663020.html