Posted by g_g_g_unit on October 13, 2013, at 3:34:39
In reply to Re: being challenged in therapy, posted by SLS on October 12, 2013, at 15:32:28
> I think CBT can reach surprisingly deep into one's psyche, but it takes a good therapist to help determine where to dig. It takes an understanding of the CBT paradigm and process for it to work best. If you don't focus on the dynamics between automatic thoughts > intermediate beliefs > core beliefs, you're not doing it right.
>Yes, I wouldn't want to undermine CBT because I believe it can work for certain issues like anxiety/OCD.
I suppose one difference is that CBT placed a lot of weight on my own interpretations of issues, whereas psychodynamic therapy often involved my therapist interpreting/analyzing my streams-of-consciousness; in other words, the stuff he offered was highly personalized and there was something jarring about having it come from him. Maybe it's because other therapists I've worked with haven't elicited that degree of respect, and I certainly don't respect myself very much. I also felt the experience more intellectually enjoyable, which I can understand might not necessarily correlate with its real-world utility.
> Some people say that CBT is worse than no therapy at all. I don't understand this.
>I think I can partially understand that insofar as CBT seems to place a heavy weight on issues stemming from your own faulty interpretation of things, and if you aren't in a position to enact much behavioural change, it can just become frustrating. If I complain about not being able to read or achieve a certain standard it's because I'm a "perfectionist", which just paints a desire for a certain quality-of-life as a pathology.
At this point, I feel like there's enough rational reason for me to be depressed, and I don't think there's much difference in my quality-of-life between living in chronic escapism and when I was undergoing CBT.
poster:g_g_g_unit
thread:1052045
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130930/msgs/1052105.html