Posted: Sep 29, 2017 3:57 pm
Fallible wrote:crank wrote:Thank you both for your replies.
Fallible, you describe how CBT is meant to be used. What's to keep someone who already has denial issues from using it, in a way that seems perfectly normal to him, but since he's in denial, he isn't perceiving the issues clearly enough, he's misidentifying how he's off reality wise. He thinks he's catastrophizing some event X, when in reality what he thinks X is is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak in how bad his behaviour was. This would allow him to minimize how seriously he views his actions when he ought to be amplifying how seriously bad he's been viewing them. Jesus, that's too confusing. What it boils down to is I'm trying to say just because CBT is supposed to work in a certain way, that shouldn't make you think that bent and broken and twisted and warped folk will use it that way. Or less confusingly, the thinking errors identified by folks with a warped view of reality might not be identified all that well. I need to use CBT to tell myself I'm not the most confusing writer on the forum.
It doesn't make me think that. It makes me think that you maybe didn't get my previous point, which is that CBT uncovers irrational thoughts and exposes them to reality. This whole thing is too confusing. There are too many unknowns. Like, do you mean he's giving CBT to himself or what? That's not really 'having CBT.' That's using some CBT techniques in some kind of ad hoc fashion. A therapist is going to recognise denial and challenge him about it. It's pretty easy to spot in a patient. Also if he's not talking to you about what he did, it's probably because he is catastrophising the outcome. If he could be more rational about it, it might actually mean he WAS then able to face you, so minimising the magnitude of it might not even be the terrible thing you seem to think it would be. That's just a couple of variables. There are more.
Ah I see another post there from you. I'm at work, just cramming some food into my gob between patients. It's Friday fuck yeah, so hopefully will have more time this evening to type the more considered response you deserve.
I also got confused about whether there was a therapist involved. His exact words were "... I've been doing CBT for the last 2-3
months, and I think I've mostly got over one of the main causes of this). I dealt with problems by ignoring and avoiding them..." I first took it to mean a therapist was involved, later I realized that was not a warranted assumption, I don't really know but lean a bit toward not. I already new he had therapy earlier, and that's where he learned CBT techniques. It is meant to be something you learn and do on your own, unless I'm grossly mistaken. I read a couple of books, one of them I think is generally very well regarded. Burn's Feeling Good. [pause] OK, I briefly wiki'ed up, I think what I could glean from that is it's largely meant to be therapist driven but having a book and doing it on your own can help. Then I got to the criticisms etc. section and that made me think it isn't quite as well accepted as I thought, with a fair number of recent results not so positive. One critic said what I've been trying to say, but without anywhere near the wordy confusion, simply "the self-deception encouraged within clients and patients engaged in CBT". It's this that bothers me, because sometimes catastrophizing something is not an error.
On the other hand, sometimes divorcing yourself from reality is the healthiest choice. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at that. Corey Doctorow has a great comment that is somewhat relevant. When you're shipwrecked, you tread water as long as you can, not because it's at all likely that you'll get rescued, but because 100% of those that did get rescued tread water. Perhaps the best ideas along these lines can be found in a fair number of the Discworld books, often said by my favorite character, Death, commenting on the nature of the human condition. Another tidbit of relevant info is that pessimists are more realistic than optimists. Taking all of this together leads me to realize I gotta go take a leak.