Posted by alexandra_k on August 18, 2013, at 1:28:12
In reply to Re: new p-doc » alexandra_k, posted by Partlycloudy on August 17, 2013, at 18:52:01
I wish I had that for therapy. and at times, for some kind of life advice more generally.
most of my therapists... have been taught lists of therapy targets such as 'black and white thinking' and 'catastrophizing' and so on. they listen only insofar as they are trying to attach one of those targets to what you have said. then they have the pithy little saying they have been taught to spit back. usually such insightful wisdom as 'that is black and white thinking!' to which i am supposed to... give them an A+?
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing...
people like to say 'rationalization!' to me. they say it like they have caught me stealing cookies from the cookie jar. p-doc (on our second meeting) said that i was 'rationalizing!' when i started trying to tell her why i didn't think cbt was likely to help me. i said... that i was trying to inform her of my experience. because perhaps things have changed in the last 6 years. perhaps it can offer me something different from what i think it is going to be.
she didn't know what to say.
that seems to be what is common to 'rationalizing!' pronouncements.
the idea seems to be that i think too much and it is my thinking that gets me into trouble.
i think the idea is that i have a very reactive nervous system. probably partly genetic (mothers side are all excitable). partly trauma because mother was indeed very unpredictable and hurtful with her excitability. and then... in my efforts to tame my nervous system... cbt taught me to... rationalize things. i mean... what is the alternative? sorry but saying to myself 'oh! i'm rationalizing!' doesn't help me feel calmer or more at peace. maybe it helps some people. i find that f*ck*ng astounding if it helps some people.
i expect it is a case of a excellent therapist (or two or three or a whole bundle of them) who wrote some stuff... and then you get idiots trying to apply it like it is gospel and they f*ck*ng miss the point. i suspect the cbt i've experienced... is a case of that.
people like to think that my thinking is what gets me into trouble. yeah. i'm just full of cognitive distortions and irrationalities. i mean... i keep getting caught on features of faulty logic like paradoxes of material implication and i have trouble grasping two dimensional model logics, that is my problem, totally, for sure.
sense they are making - not.
and when i suggest to them that it is not about failures of logic (which would be good for them, yes, since i am better at logic than them) they are reluctant. they don't like that.
i think... perhaps people in this country are dumber than average. a lot dumber than average...
maybe it is the flouride in the water?
maybe it is fetal alcohol effects from all the binge drinking?holy sh*t.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1048672
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130807/msgs/1049256.html