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I've undergone CBT too and it always felt like quackery to me. The point of CBT seems to be to get people to accept their shitty circumstances instead of actual

by Aaargh20318 8y ago

I've undergone CBT too and it always felt like quackery to me. The point of CBT seems to be to get people to accept their shitty circumstances instead of actually fixing things. Psychology is the new religion. Instead of saying "accept your shitty life, you'll be rewarded after death" they are saying "you think you have a shitty life, but you just need to look at it differently". CBT felt like an exercise in self-deception to me. The 'bad thoughts' are a result of the shitty circumstances in life, so shouldn't we be working on those instead of trying to convince myself that shit doesn't stink ? I strongly believe that 99% of people who visit a psychiatrist could be cured by just handing them 20 million dollars. That would return a persons freedom and remove a huge amount of stress-factors.

gonnadoit05 8y ago
lol, I’ve been on Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Depakote, Lamictal, and Topomax. I’ve obviously been through the system. You sir summarized CBT perfectly. This entire industry needs to shelved and rebuilt from scratch. I feel better knowing someone else experienced the same frustrations with the Mental Health Industry as I have.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
Given how miserable lottery winners are, or how many wealthy people are in therapy, it doesn’t seem like cash solves people’s mental health problems. If anything, it can exacerbate them.
jdietrich 8y ago
You may enjoy the work of R.D. Laing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing
jm__87 8y ago
CBT felt like an exercise in self-deception to me. And what makes you think your current perception of the world is completely perfect and unbiased? Perhaps the problem is that you are convinced that you have the most accurate picture of the world and aren't questioning it.
- J-dawg 8y ago
  My own experiences with depression have made me think you’re both partially correct. I feel like happiness is about learning how to deceive yourself. It’s about learning how to put a positive spin on everything, and internalise it. I struggle with this because I don’t want to deceive myself. But then I’m probably deceiving myself in the opposite direction with all sorts of negative thoughts.
  - jm__87 8y ago
    Personally, I have found it helps to just always try to take a pragmatic perspective: how is what I'm doing right now helping me achieve what I want in life? If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel? When you feel that way, are you in the best state of mind to achieve your goals? Absolutely not. So you need strategies to deal with those useless thoughts. Distract yourself with something else or reframe your thinking somehow. In the long run, the ideal would be to not have those unhelpful automatic thoughts at all (this is what therapy is for) but in the short run, they are there and you gotta find a way to deal with and manage them if you want to move your life forward. Meditation/mindfulness can be extremely helpful in this regard. I'd highly recommend "The Mindful Way Through Depression" to learn some techniques to help. The goal here should be to catch yourself sooner when you're thinking unhelpful thoughts instead of marinating in them for a long period of time (and creating a more negative effect on your mood) and learning a strategy to get out of that mode of thinking.
    - Aaargh20318 8y ago
      > If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel? It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You need to focus on the bad things in life if you want to have a chance of improving things. Burying your head in the sand doesn't solve anything. Don't waste your time focussing on the good stuff, it doesn't need fixing. If all you want to do is feel good despite everything around you being shit, why not just do heroin ? You'll feel great and it's a lot less effort than convincing yourself that black is white.

gonnadoit05 8y ago

lol, I’ve been on Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Depakote, Lamictal, and Topomax. I’ve obviously been through the system. You sir summarized CBT perfectly. This entire industry needs to shelved and rebuilt from scratch. I feel better knowing someone else experienced the same frustrations with the Mental Health Industry as I have.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

Given how miserable lottery winners are, or how many wealthy people are in therapy, it doesn’t seem like cash solves people’s mental health problems. If anything, it can exacerbate them.

jdietrich 8y ago

You may enjoy the work of R.D. Laing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing

jm__87 8y ago

CBT felt like an exercise in self-deception to me. And what makes you think your current perception of the world is completely perfect and unbiased? Perhaps the problem is that you are convinced that you have the most accurate picture of the world and aren't questioning it.

J-dawg 8y ago
My own experiences with depression have made me think you’re both partially correct. I feel like happiness is about learning how to deceive yourself. It’s about learning how to put a positive spin on everything, and internalise it. I struggle with this because I don’t want to deceive myself. But then I’m probably deceiving myself in the opposite direction with all sorts of negative thoughts.
- jm__87 8y ago
  Personally, I have found it helps to just always try to take a pragmatic perspective: how is what I'm doing right now helping me achieve what I want in life? If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel? When you feel that way, are you in the best state of mind to achieve your goals? Absolutely not. So you need strategies to deal with those useless thoughts. Distract yourself with something else or reframe your thinking somehow. In the long run, the ideal would be to not have those unhelpful automatic thoughts at all (this is what therapy is for) but in the short run, they are there and you gotta find a way to deal with and manage them if you want to move your life forward. Meditation/mindfulness can be extremely helpful in this regard. I'd highly recommend "The Mindful Way Through Depression" to learn some techniques to help. The goal here should be to catch yourself sooner when you're thinking unhelpful thoughts instead of marinating in them for a long period of time (and creating a more negative effect on your mood) and learning a strategy to get out of that mode of thinking.
  - Aaargh20318 8y ago
    > If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel? It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You need to focus on the bad things in life if you want to have a chance of improving things. Burying your head in the sand doesn't solve anything. Don't waste your time focussing on the good stuff, it doesn't need fixing. If all you want to do is feel good despite everything around you being shit, why not just do heroin ? You'll feel great and it's a lot less effort than convincing yourself that black is white.