Where is everyone?

[Guest ASchwartz]

Where are out cognitive re-framing members?

This is an important forum and it needs to be used. Perhaps I need to be more involved in helping teach cognitive re-framing? Please let me know.

Allan

[randomperson]

I took a basic psych 101 course and understand the idea. But I am unsure how to use this part of the forum to help with current issues.

[Lindamomof7]

Hi Allan I have been for the last year gently dropping hints that it would be great if a professional such as yourself could be more involved in some of the issues, discussions, conflicts etc to help us become more educated and learn and guide us here on the forum

Don't get me wrong the support here is irreplaceable and although it is understood this is not a replacement for therapy but i think sometimes we need some professional guidance.

[Sissagwaad]

Indeed why can it not be a brave approach towards a sort of guided group therapy, where the mentor periodically guides us to explore deeper to discover the wisdom that resides within the explorer?

[Lindamomof7]

Sissagwaad, agreed, and I totally get peer recovery but I guess this is exactly what happens that something gets posted like this almost a month ago and no response to the replies. Oh well, life goes on.... literally.....

[Guest ASchwartz]

Well, we cannot do a therapy, group or guided or of any kind here. There are insurance and malpractice and legal issues, not to mention ethical issues for the professionals like myself.

However, there is no reason why we shouldn't talk about cognitive reframing, how to use it with ourselves and how to understand an apply it on a practical basis.

Allan:)

[58corvette]

Just Noticed the Post. Maybe because it's at the Bottom of page & People dont quite understand the Meaning? Im sure if it's Noticed, Understood & Clarified Better; More of us May Join in Discussion.

Im in.....

JIM

[58corvette]

Plus ive been wrapped up in My Own Little World. But This type of Topic Could Help those Types of Issues also. Correct?

[Lindamomof7]

so go ahead Allen, get this started????

[hatemeds]

Is cognitive reframing the same thing as CBT?

****

[hatemeds]

Sorry y'all got me to thinking...presuming we are talkin cognitive behav therapy

When is it better to go to one of the more analytic type therapists and when CBT? I mean are some people/personalities better suited to the one or the other or does it come down to what you are struggling with

****

[Guest ASchwartz]

Hi,

It isn't a matter which is better for you. Its a matter of which you think is the best therapy. CBT tends to be shorter because its very specific and focused. It you want to talk a lot and not mind a long time in therapy and want to learn about yourself and your past then psychodynamic is ok.

Allan

[58corvette]

Okay; Sometimes I don't Like or Understand Fancy Words or Terms for Anything. I think many People may feel the Same? Therefor Hesitate until Understood & Comprehended in their own Mind.

But one of the Beautiful things about the Internet; Like the Encyclopedia is you can look up Meanings quickly.

Cognitive Reframing (Or Restructuring): Basically through Proper Therapy & Technique; Retraining your Mind, Thoughts & Actions to Think & Do in Positive Terms & Ways. That's the way I will put it for Myself (or Others) Hopefully in a Helpful way.

So I Deal with: 1) Depression. I wake up & I'm Down, think "Negative" Thoughts about Many Things.

I need to start waking up, think "Positive" Thankful I'm Alive, it's another Beautiful Day, I'm Someone & I can Make A Difference.

2) Anxiety. "Negative" I don't want to & I'm Fearful of Going out on a Date; Going to that Interview; Seeing people I don't know.

"Positive" I'm looking Forward to this Date; This Interview will be Helpful; I am going to be seeing New People & that can only enrich my Life.

3) Social Phobia (or Anxiety). "Negative" I am going to a Place, Event, Mall, Work; whatever it may be where there is going to be Many people I don't know & I'm just not looking forward to it or Comfortable thinking about it At All.

"Positive" These People are Human Like Me & they enjoy the same things; this is going to be Great & another Experience in my life. Who knows I just may meet a Person or People that can make a difference in my life or maybe I can make a difference in theirs?

How am I doing Allan?

[IrmaJean]

I can't speak for Allan, Jim, but this sounds like a good start to me. I still have to catch myself from catastrophizing at times and still often use reframing...though sometimes not soon enough. Having self-awareness is a great place to start.

Hatemeds, my former therapist used both psychodynamic and CBT(to a lesser extent) with me during therapy. It's not unusual now to find professionals who use an eclectic approach. As for what method might work better for an individual, I still very much believe in the healing power of the relationship as being central to having a successful therapeutic experience. Having said that, you might consider how you approach problems in general. Do you want to know the "whys" of things and how the pieces of the puzzle fit together? Or are you more interested in the results? In the end, what really matters is that therapy is working for you.

[58corvette]

Thanx IrmaJean;

Im Self-Aware; (And im going to use many of my own words here) sometimes To Much & in Negative Ways.

I need to Become More Positive & Confident on a Daily Basis in a Constructive & Productive Way.

So hopefully the Ball will get Rolling Here with Many More Joining in & we Can all Continue to Help each other in a Positive Way Moving Forward & Progressing in our Individual Lives. Through Time, Healing & Self-Awareness.

Ebb & Flow............................................

[Guest ASchwartz]

Hi 58,

I agree with Beth. You are off to a good start. Now, part of the job is to figure out the thoughts that pull you down. Then, see if you can replace them. Can you think of some of your negative thoughts or pick just one?

Allan

[nathan]

Cognitive therapy seems like a western version of spirituality. In traditional western physcology, we have always looked at the 'subconscious'...If you were abused as a child, its going to affect in you in a certain way...If you had alcoholic parents, its going to affect you in another way, and so on. We could empircally study these things and so we stuck to this approach.

Being so fixiated on the subconscious, we negelcted 'conciousness,' that is teachings on how to deal with the immediate moment and ones immediate thoughts, regardless of the subconscious. This is of course, exactly what religions have been teaching for centuries. Now, recently cognitive therapy has shown up, and it is still in its infancy, and is nowhere near as successful in helping people as spiritual teachings are.

Cognitive therapy seems to skip an important step. It simply tells us take a negative thought and turn it into a positive one. But what you are really doing there is taking a negative thought, ignoring and supressing it, and attempting to distract yourself with a 'positive thought'. This is a form of surpressing thoughts, and it will lead to more stress and anxiety.

Spiritual approaches teach us to differentiate ourself from our thoughts to the extent that it does not really matter whether the thoughts you are having are positive or negative, becuase you don't wholly identify yourself with them. In doing this, positive thoughts and feelings simply manifest, becuase you won't be supressing anxious negative thoughts underneath falesly imposed positive thoughts.

[Guest SomethingOrOther]

In my understanding, if you think cognitive therapy is about supressing negative thoughts, you're doing it wrong.

[Sissagwaad]

In my understanding, if you think cognitive therapy is about supressing negative thoughts, you're doing it wrong.

I'm not going to support that anything is wrong or right. Isn't it more useful instead of such judgements, perhaps look at what works towards fascilitating the quality of emotion one wants? and whether it is useful, or not towards that end?

If one chooses to clothe themselves with negative thoughts, it has a natural result.

Really, is there something out there, outside of oneself, controling what one chooses to focus themselves upon?

(are we really about embracing such victimhood? Its neither right or wrong, good or bad?

Isn't it is simply a choice with a natural outcome?

Therapy, effective and useful therapy, ought to be about fascilitating someone confused in their thinking choices, to realize, recognize, and learn to appreciate and celebrate their ultimate freedom, and about celebrating this genuinely with the explorer and their choices. imho

Why is it us humans seem obsessed with making everything so complicated?

Is it really necessary? hugs to all

[Sissagwaad]

Nathan, you wrote: "Cognitive therapy seems to skip an important step. It simply tells us take a negative thought and turn it into a positive one. But what you are really doing there is taking a negative thought, ignoring and supressing it, and attempting to distract yourself with a 'positive thought'. This is a form of surpressing thoughts, and it will lead to more stress and anxiety"

It may 'seem' that way Nathan, but Cognitive therapy as I appreciate it is more than just switching ones thoughts. It is more about discerning cognitively the result of one's freely chosen thoughts or patterns, and becoming free to either keep em, alter em, or toss em all together for something that helps to support a different flavor of life.

Cognitive therapy is about learning to appreciate that the quality of thoughts we continue to dress ourselves with result in consequential emotional experience. imho

[malign]

Nathan, I too think of CBT differently than you do. The way I see it, it's not about suppressing the negative thought, but about examining that thought for reasonableness, and substituting a different one if and only if you decide the first one is a distortion.

For instance, a fairly common thought is "Nobody likes me," or even "Everyone hates me." In the first case, it's not hard to reword this as "Nobody likes me, that I know about, at the moment." The changes point to two common cognitive distortions: that we can know the minds of others, and that what is true at any given instant will always be true. The second thought has the additional point that you don't know everyone.

Of course, the reformulations I've given are crude first drafts, but I give them to show that the process involves the client themselves choosing new thoughts, not suppressing the old ones.

[Sissagwaad]

And another thing, These are just ones imagenings, our judgements.

What does it matter, really, whether or whatever another thinks, says, does?

Anyone remember the rhyme "Sticks and Stones~~~~"?

"Words" Simple actions, nuances, behavior of others.....that is their business. Wouldn't it be a simpler world if everyone focused on being responsibly in charge of their own mental garden, instead of looking for excuses?

If everyone looked after #1, effectively, and maintains being OK.....like wow.

So, my take on the ideals of therapy, or on being a therapon....is to walk lovingly with another......and to provide only simple, unloaded questions, towards fascilitating the other to explore and to discover their own councell and freedom to choose from a wider perspective of options.

[nathan]

There is defintely value to fixing distorted thoughts, that part of cognitive therapy is good, it is good to rationalize irrationale thoughts. But first of all this process can be missused, for instance one can have a negative thought that is not so distorted, but negative none the less, and then create a false, truely distorted 'positive' thought in an attempt to override it. If we do this continuely as means of trying to cope, we end up trying to hold onto a false reality, and it will cause pain and stress. And I sure people will do this, becuase once the concept of using postive thoughts to override negative thoughts is adopted by someone, they will probably try to use it ubiquitously, to solve all their pains, it is just too easy for that to happen.

There is a greater value to learning how to accept painful thoughts, particularly when they are negative and NOT distorted, for instance, my brother is dead, that is not a distortion. Now my egoic mind may skew that thought, make unnecessary addtions to it, for instance, I may end up telling myself, that 'my brother is dead, and it is my fault that he is dead'. Cognitive therapy, that is the ability to fix distorted thougths is very useful here, but that is far from the end of the story, my brother really is dead. So in order to cope I am gping to have to find a way to live with that reality.

Spiritual practices teach one to differentiate oneself from their thought alltogether, A thought becomes a sensation not an ultimate reality, never ends in themselves. In the same way you have sensations of touch, you have sensations of thougths and feelings. You learn to differentiate yourself from your thoughts, your ego, your life story, your problems, even your rational thoughts are not you, they are just things you have been aware of. Learning to take such a perspective, true or not, is sometimes the only way out, and in my opinion you will become immenseley stronger as a person, becuase you have truely overcome your thoughts that trapped you before. placing positive thoughts as a top priority is valuable, but it also perpetuates a dependancy on thoughts being positive, but life isnt always positive, things go wrong. And when the do, instead of scrambling for postive thoughts, why not get the the point where you don't need to?

CBT is only good to a certain extent, but it is far from the end of the story when it comes to real depression and anxiety.

In my understanding, if you think cognitive therapy is about supressing negative thoughts, you're doing it wrong

would you like to explain your understanding? I dont ask this in an argumentative way, I am genuinely interested...

[Sissagwaad]

ok, with my sharing my notions of the ideals of effective therapy, you bring up notion of 'false reality,' similar to notions of 'false hope.' etc etc.

Thoughts are thoughts, why choose to think thoughts that support an experience of pain? (I'm not judging the choice as good or bad, but encouraging discovery of the reasoning of why or for what result one might choose to make this choice)

So your brother died? With awe and wonderment I would perhaps invite you to explore how you feel about that.

At a fundamental level we seem often oblivious to our judging all stimuli as good/bad, pleasurable/painful...and begin to access beliefs around such stimuli. A loving effective therapon will follow their client's lead, (non-directively, non-judgementally) inviting them to begin a process of recognizing their hand in creating the flavor of their emotional experience, and their freedom......and therefore no longer a helpless victim.

A thought does not become a sensation, it supports a sensation in response to the thought.

"There is a greater value to learning how to accept painful thoughts?"

as what, for what end, or use? Acknowledge a thought for what it is, simply a thought. Judging something as painful, leads to believing that's how it is and has to be. Isn't that kindof limiting?.......laters, have many priorities...hugs

[Guest SomethingOrOther]

I'm glad I evoked an interest.

I don't think you appreciate how many of your ideas are actually part of cognitive therapy.

Differentiate yourself from your thoughts and feelings?

Cognitive therapy teaches how to identify thoughts and feelings and treat them for what they are: thoughts and feelings. Not self. Identifying them enables people to look at them from more distance.

It's a question of definition, but I see "missuse" of cognitive methods as "doing it wrong". It's not for changing the facts. It's for changing the distortions. And most importantly it's about learning how to tell facts from distortions.

That it's a simple concept doesn't mean it's easy to apply.

You can argue that people will use it for the wrong things, which basically produces new distortions. But I don't think cognitive therapy places a high value on positive thoughts. Thats an oversimplified view. Cognitive therapy in my view puts the focus on questioning distorted thoughts and replacing them with realistic ones. It probably feels good to have positive thoughts in addition, because they rarely make it through depressed mental filters, but that's more a bonus type of thing.

S.