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It is pretty poor form for a New York Times article to not bother to define what "cognitive behavioral therapy" is in an article touting it, or even give any ex
by StefanKarpinski 11y ago
It is pretty poor form for a New York Times article to not bother to define what "cognitive behavioral therapy" is in an article touting it, or even give any examples of what specifically CBT might entail in the context of treating sleep problems.
- tptacek 11y agoThe second half of the article answers the question of how CBT addresses sleep problems.
- StefanKarpinski 11y agoWhere? It describes some effects of CBT may have but nowhere does it describe what CBT treatment actually entails.
- tptacek 11y agoIt links both to an academic paper and an online self-help thing prescribed by his doctor, and it talks at a high level about what CBT is. Are you familiar with CBT? If you aren't, the trouble you might be having is that CBT is pretty subtle: it's (in loose terms) a set of exercises you perform to train your mind to respond differently to stimuli. If you've ever read David Foster Wallace's Kendall College Commencement, when he talks about the "default setting", he's giving a pretty decent layman's explanation of the goals of CBT.
- StefanKarpinski 11y agoMy point is that when reading an article in a publication like the New York Times, one should not need to follow links to academic papers or be familiar, a priori, with the subject matter. Providing a high-level overview without requiring the reading of additional sources is precisely what a properly written article in a newspaper like this is supposed do. This article fails at that quite badly.