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nightfalls

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Ah, the joys of anxiety, the chaos in the head. The pulling back and forth between wanting a change in life and being fed up, and being scared on the whole aspect of it all. Is this going to cause you more tension? Probally,because it is just easier staying at home, but it is a good thing! Sure, you just might feel awful after leaving and you might want to flee during, but just maybe, some relief might come, or maybe you will connect with someone who's situation is like yours. I understand how you are feeling, I try not to think about anything until I get where I am going, and most of the time, it is okay, I might still feel like an idiot...but i went! An accomplishment on one's behalf.Things only get more comfortable the more you go, and remember that you want to make the right choices for yourself and your family, and small steps are better than no steps at all! I wish you all the best, and keep posting on how that is working for you because I would like to know if it is helping.

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forgetting,

This is a really good development. It is pretty normal to feel apprehensive before you go to a therapy group. There are lots of people to meet (more than just a therapist which is quite threatening enough), and the purpose is serious. It's easy to think that you'll "fail" at joining properly or won't get the therapy and will flunk out. These are normal fears that I think most everyone who isn't hardheaded feels when they first go to a group. As Jennifer points out though,

Things only get more comfortable the more you go

I had likened it to getting into a swiming pool in another post. it's uncomfortable at first, but then you quickly get used to the water after the initial shock.

The point is to allow yourself to be a student, and to keep firmly in mind why you (and the other participants) are there. You will all have anxiety (or some similar difficult problem) in common. If you are nervous about meeting them, chances are good they are similarly nervous about meeting you.

Mark

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I think it is a good step that you are thinking this through and trying to deal with potential issues up front. I tend to push away the thoughts I don't want to face instead of sorting through them ahead of time.

I do hope you will report on how this group goes. I have been toying with looking into an anxiety group therapy as well. I have only ever been in group therapy while IP or while in IOP so I don't know how an OP group works or if I would be able to make myself go??? With IP and IOP, you really don't have much of a choice, kwim? I mean you can refuse any group, I guess, but then that is noted in your chart and makes life harder for the patient!

Like you, I wonder how to walk into a group of strangers and suddenly share your deepest fears and anxieties? I keep thinking "if I could do that, I wouldn't truly have a problem would I?"

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Well - the thing is that not everyone has to talk at once. There are usually members in an OP (outpatient) group who do most of the talking and then there are more silent members. The group leader will try to draw everyone out but not everyone likes to talk.

It's not that the people talking are less anxious than the people who aren't talking. It's just that they cope with their anxiety by talking, while others cope by keeping silent.

Some people take longer to warm up and speak than others. So it is okay for people to go to an outpatient group and not speak for a while. that is really okay. The therapist will probably encourage you to speak, but probably won't press the point.

In a CBT group there will be a lot of teacher lecturing (becuase there is a particular skill to learn in CBT - reframing). So the demand to speak as an individual will be less than in some other formats, although it will be there clearly. Just remember that over time speaking will become more something that you can tolerate as you learn to trust the group members.

Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I am happy to read that things are going well in your group. If your experience is anything like mine was with CBT, your diligence will be rewarded many times over as you learn the skills of questioning the thoughts that can keep you miserable.

Please keep us all up to date on your progress. I, for one, am rooting for you! :)

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Guest ASchwartz

I want to join Catmom in congratulating you, Forgeting, in doing well with CBT. Therapy is hard work and it can be frustrating but, persistence pays off in terms of feeling better and gaining a sense of control over your life and emotions. Congratulations and good going. :)

Allan

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Forgetting,

I'm wondering. I talk about CBT all the time (as it is a really good and effective therapy for what ails you in many cases), but not everyone knows what it involves. But you now do.

I know it is a private thing (or can be), but would you consider sharing some of your automatic thoughts with the group and some of your disputing process to try to strip off the cognitive distortions that are probably crusted on those thoughts. I think it could be very helpful for some people here to see an example of what the therapy involves, and possibly, the commuity could help you with the disputing process.

It's a lot to ask, I know, so please don't feel pressured to do something you don't feel comfortable doing.

Mark

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Congratulations Forgeting-

It really does sound like you are making process. I think CBT related skills can be very empowering on many levels. It's really great and comforting to know that you have a bag of tricks that you can use to deal with stressors that come up. In addition, they are internal to you- so you don't have to wait for someone else to turn them on or control them. I personally like knowing that I do have some power and control over how I react to things, rather than feeling like I am at the mercy of everyone else (or everything else that happens). Keep up the practice- the skills are ones that you need to keep doing to get them to work across time.

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FYI-

I hit send before responding to your disputing thoughts post. You are doing a very good job. That is definitely one way to dispute the "I am a failure" thought.

I would also encourage you to think about what you will do when you do fail in the future. Unfortunately, all of us have times where we don't succeed at everything we try, so you also need to be prepared with a helpful thought for that situation. Here are some ideas for that time:

1) Just because I failed once doesn't mean I will fail every other time in the future.

2) (variation on #1): Just because I failed now doesn't mean that I am a failure. In other words, feeling like a failure doesn't mean that I truly am a failure (feelings don't always = facts).

You may also need to explore your definitions of "success" for situations. Some people place the bar too high and cannot possibly succeed, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It usually isn't an all or nothing situation.

What do you think?

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Forgetting - this is great stuff!

I think a big automatic thought for me is that "I have failed" or " I am going to fail" in whatever way.

So here is a belief you have concerning yourself and your ability to do a good job with regard to whatever you are doing. We could call it a self-efficacy belief becuase it has to do with your expectation that you can do good work in addition to your negative attribution of the quality of your work.

I get this thought to everything I have done, everything I try to do, everything I want to do almost everyday.

You overgeneralize this belief - it gets applied to everything you do, every work product you produce. It might have been true at one or several points that you failed at something - but the way that it works presently, you are set up to automatically apply this belief to whatever you do. It isn't possible that you are a failure at *everything*, but that is the way it appears to you

I really struggle with this and decisions I make are totally affected by this thought. I have gotten very depressed by this, I have chosen to not try new things at all, I have felt regret at doing things in the past, I have not gotten pleasure from my life because of being caught in this thought.

I have seen a direct difference in my mood with this thought, when I think to try something and my thought is " I will fail" my mood drops dramaticly and if I am under other stress or the topics fly by me with the same thought I get depressed very quickly.

And this this is the way that the thought gets converted into emotion. You believe that you will/have fail(ed), and that stops you from taking the risks that are necessary to have a quality of life. You're frightened of what people think of you (because failure is always a social judgment) and this would cause you to be in appeasement mode in which you can't enjoy yourself. You can't be creative when you are worried about failing too much. If your expectation is that you always fail - you have to be depressed because you are knowing that people are always thinking badly of you and if you care about that (and most people do) it means that you can't relax until you have their approval again which never comes and .... this is a perpetual motion machine for unhappiness.

OK so to challenge this thought to see if it is accurate: I have done well with my work, I have received recognition to jobs done well, I have been asked to do work for others because of my ways in which I do, my family comments on things positively that I've done.

After identifying the automatic thought (the belief), the task is to examine it for logical and rational problems and to restate the thought in the light of having addressed those problems. This process is called disputing.

Since part of the issue here is overgeneralization (over-application of the negative belief), one way to take it apart and put it back together again all cleaned up is to look for ways to ungeneralize. Which you've done. You've done okay in the realm of work and you cite evidence from other people who could judge you negatively but have not in support of this good work. Of course, you could minimize this positive feedback (another possible cognitive error) but you don't seem to be doing that thankfully.

I really have to push hard with this one because it affects everyday choices that I make, I have to force myself to try new things still but I am glad that I am trying.

Well sure! This overgeneralization is a habit, like biting your nails, or smoking cigarettes. There is an automatic default gonna-do-it-unless-I-think-to-stop-myself quality about it. You have to spend a lot of energy to fight the habit; it's work.

I'm glad that you are glad that you are trying - taking sensible risks is a part of what makes a happy life possible. Trying doesn't mean that you won't fail. You will fail at some things. But that is normal. If you aren't failing sometimes, you aren't doing it right.

When I counter my thought with the " I don't fail all the time, I do try hard and do well, my mood is better, I am not as anxious during the whatever thing I am trying to do.

It's great that it is working for you so quickly. I think you may find that sometimes it works easily and sometimes the negative moods that you are undeservadly experiencing are more sticky and that you have to push harder against them. Cognitive restructuring/disputing is not a miracle cure thing - it's just like weight lifting. You are building up a new habit, and the ultimate strength of that new habit will be a function of how diligently you "work out" (e.g., practice the disputing process). This technqiue tends to work over time - but it is great if it works for you immediately. That is so nice to see.

Anyways I am still learning this and I write it out a bit differently then this much more detailed but I think this is still the idea of it to challenge the automatic thoughts that we have to see if they are accuarte or not and mostly they are not, they are over-exagerated and negative and not helpful at all! OK so I think this is what you asked let me know how I did:o:o:o

Allow yourself to be a student. It's okay to be a learner. You have the right idea and you are doing great. :)

One idea I have you might consider is to look at ways to make the belief (I will fail) more specific. beucase the way you've phrased it, it is very general. But you probably encounter variations on the theme of I will fail in many different specific contexts in your life, and you may need to work on disputing each one separately. The evidence that you 've got that you are a good worker (good at your job) won't hold up if you try to apply it to another aspect of your life. And the disputing process loses its power if you try to bullshit yourself. You have to tell yourself the truth when you dispute or it's not believable and you don't feel better.

Mark

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Forgetting,

We try to be helpful and hope we are, but we can't guarentee anything :)

What you've noticed, about feeling like you are "bullshitting" yourself is a frequently encountered issue when you are doing CBT. If you do CBT and end up not believing your disputes such as you are describing, then the disputes have no real meaning and they won't be all that effective (or no more effective than someone telling themselves positive affirmations that they don't believe either) which is to say not very effective.

So - when that happens, it's time to look carefully at what the belief is and what the nature of the dispute is and what the nature of why you can't believe the dispute is. I gather that you do believe what you are telling yourself as a dispute, but the shame or horror or whathaveyou that is attached to the feeling of letting your father down is so tremendous that it's like trying to slay an ox with a bb gun. This gun shoots, but it hasn't got sufficient force to knock the beast over.

So - what is it about that shame that makes it so horrible for you to not be able to pay back your parent? Look for the belief there and see if you can dispute that set of beliefs. Why is the situation so horrible?

the other tact you can take is to work on accepting the feeling of being a failure as a part of who you are; your experience. By this I mean to practice mindfulness skills such as meditation practice. If you get good at such skill, what happens is that you disembed a little bit from the feeling of horror that is associated with being a failure, and then it becomes much easier to tolerate.

CBT used to be all about pure disputing, but over the last decade or so, this idea of mindfulness/acceptance has really come on strong, and it is now the counterpart of the disputing process. What you cannot alter through force of argument, you can dissolve or disembed from.

Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest ASchwartz

Well, good, I am pleased that you did your CBT homework and went for a walk.

Did it help you feel better?

By the way, brisk walking is good exercise and can improve mood.

Allan:)

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But cbt is really great if you work at it. It has done amazing things for me and will be forever indebted to my group leader for turning me onto all the exercises and exposing me to the cbt books by Sam Obitz and David Burns which helped me turn my life around. If you really want to feel better cbt can help you get there!

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Guest ASchwartz

Hi Cynthia and Forgeting,

I am so very pleased that CBT has help you, Cynthia. I also think it's terrific. Of course David Burns is one of the experts and his manuals are great in teaching people how they can do CBT themselves. You know what I also like about Dr. Burns: He has an anxiety disorder and this helped him. He admits this openly in his books and manuals and I think that is terrific.

Forgeting, I agree that walking or any exercise for NO MORE than 1 hour is excellent. I fully agree that you, me and everyone should avoid becoming obsessed.

Thank you both. :)

Allan

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