Why I (As a Therapist) Hate CBT | Therapist Explains Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

[@MickeyAtkins]

Go to www.earthbreeze.com/mickey to get started with 40% off Earth Breeze Eco Sheets! *Oops, I accidentally said Eco Breeze! I meant Earth Breeze!*

[@kdmedic2005]

You don't by chance still see patients, do you? You're probably the only person I'd consider as a therapist.

[@MadHatta555]

​@@kdmedic2005 Hey, couple of things to address your request: 1) Your clinician has to be liscensed in your state. If Mickey is not licensed in the state you receive care, then it is legally out of anyone's hands. 2) Mickey has a website, if you google her name it is the third or fourth result. You can submit a request for information on services there. 3) I totally understand wanting someone like Mickey as a therapist. My current therapist practices similarly and holds a lot of the same beliefs. There are lots of therapists that would be similar to seeing Mickey, if you don't happen to be able to recieve services with her specifically. I would suggest googling the names or in-network providers and look within the parameters you have set. I prefer younger, female therapists because I want to feel like the person accross from me can truly empathize with my lived experience. You can also usually see a clinicians focus/area of expertise, I usually look for people who have a vested interest in my specific mental illnesses/neurodivergence. You can do something similar and isolate traits that you want to see in the therapist that you will work with for the foreseeable future. Best of luck, and have a wonderful day, friend!

[@stoneneils]

Your tattoos clearly indicate a LACK within, while you weight shows lack of self-control and your incessant giggling shows incredible immaturity. You have no righ telling anyone what is good or bad psychologically for you my dear are literally a mess.

[@teairabuchanan]

Love these!

[@rostabianka6743]

@MickeyAtkins, recently a game came out about CBT, where you play as a vampire therapist. The game itself is called Vampire Therapist, and I've been enjoying my time playing with it, but as somebody who's intrested in pszychology, I've been wondering if it's actually healthy or does good representation on how CBT should be done, and in general how accurate it is. I know you don't usually review games, but if you have some time, could you check it out?

[@alexandrac591]

CBT made me feel like i was in the principal's office all the time. I began to dread therapy and felt like i was being gaslighted about things that were real problems. If you're scared of the mall or whatever, sure, I can see CBT maybe being helpful. But if you're scared about the ongoing impacts of being poor, this is a terrible headspace to be in. Edited to add that CBT is not very likely to to help people afraid of the mall either because it never gets into any of the reasons why a person might be afraid of the mall.

[@EnchantingWings1]

It's cousin, DBT, felt the same for me. I was in constant distress because of CPTSD. While it did deal with some symptoms of the problem, it didn't deal with what was causing them. And being unhappy with how things were going in therapy caused tensions between my therapist and I. It was only when they wouldn't allow me to email them about why I needed to see someone during their annual leave (trauma coming up), and asking me to talk about the trauma on the phone on a packed rush hour bus... I knew therapy with them, and CBT type approaches, were just not it for me. EMDR has done more for me within three months than DBT ever did. As my friend pointed out, I'm calmer, more composed, more confident... And all that was left over even after three years of DBT and other CBT type approaches. I needed to deal with the core, something DBT couldn't help with.

[@willmack3308]

Soooo true. That’s a great way of putting it😊

[@AzariaSpace1]

@@EnchantingWings1dbt has been really helpful for me personally. However, I did a bunch of other types of therapy first to work through trauma. I firmly believe (and have some evidence to support) that dbt would have increased the harm I experienced if I tried it first/before I was ready

[@EnchantingWings1]

@@AzariaSpace1 I'm really glad it worked for you after you did trauma work. I absolutely agree. While I think the distress tolerance module needs to be taught at beginning of any therapy to bring down intensity, the rest can wait until work on the root of the issue is finished. That way, the skills actually have calmer and more settled ground to grow in. Teaching someone interpersonal effectiveness and emotional regulation skills when they're having constant flashbacks, in my view, isn't productive. A lot of emotional regulation skills are based in "what I want in the future", which a person with CPTSD or PTSD might struggle with if they're constantly having flashbacks or emotional flashbacks. If I was taught these skills after doing trauma work, the skills might have stuck landing a bit better. But I had a therapist who didn't seem particularly well trained in trauma or trauma-informed practice. Or neurodivergence, which complicated my situation.

[@RJones-tn5vg]

There were two shootings at my local mall last year. I'm not going back.

[@KiraRagged]

As a person with a chronic pain condition I also found CBT invalidating. The last straw that made me stop seeing my therapist was her responding to my concerns/ complaints about fatigue keeping me from doing many of the things i knew i needed and wanted to do by telling me "what if you act as though you're not tired?". Like lady this isn't an act and it's not all in my head ffs!

[@gamewrit0058]

I'm sorry, that was an awful way for the therapist to treat you. Fellow chronic pain viewer here, offering gentle hugs and energy spoons, if you want them. ❤🥄🥄🥄

[@Romanticoutlaw]

as someone who's never been to therapy it's kind of insane to me that there's an official therapy model that to me just sounds like the same "have you considered just not being depressed" that other people have hit me with throughout my life

[@robertairvin2310]

​​@@Romanticoutlawto be fair, the principles of CBT were developed with an understanding that there's a difference between catastrophizing and recognizing the bad in things that are legitimately bad (I think the guy who developed CBT even developed a means to MEASURE whether someone is likely to be engaging in irrational thinking styles or not), and an understanding that it takes months and lots of practice to change thought patterns like catastrophizing and ultimately reduce depression symptoms. The irony is that now CBT therapists seem to have the irrational belief that "if a client comes to my office, they MUST have irrational thinking patterns, and ALL of their thoughts are irrational" rather than a more reasonable approach of "let's evaluate whether irrational thinking styles are at play - and if so WHAT they are here BEFORE we decide whether this is the right therapy for this client" gotta love when therapists throw the actual research and theory out the window.

[@OrigamiJ88]

I had to try to explain how chronic fatigue is different from "normal" fatigue SO MANY TIMES to my therapist, and then she'd turn around and still try to blame my fatigue on me thinking about it too much, or being linked to my feelings. I'd already explained that I could definitively tie it to some external physical things (like the temperature/weather), and that I'd still occasionally be surprised by NOT having fatigue when I fully expected to be practically unable to move. Her telling me that I "think about my health too much" was the last straw, especially in response to me talking about finding additional evidence of medical malpractice. Even aside from the other medical issues I was currently having that were affecting my vision and the medical issues related to the malpractice, my issue when I was talking to her was with my doctor and how I felt about his treatment of me. I felt worse after appointments as often as I felt like it had been even minorly helpful.

[@OrigamiJ88]

I also definitely got the "what if you act like you're not tired?" and got to explain exactly how much it made things worse

[@lizreichert7529]

Retired therapist here - I believe using CBT to treat complex trauma is like using paracetamol to treat a broken leg.

[@transsexual_computer_faery]

indeed

[@philima]

Thank you. As someone with trauma, my body knows just talking about it won't help me at all. 😅 I literally feel the trauma stuck in my body.

[@circleinfo]

What would you recommend? DBT? Schema therapy? And what do you say about Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)?

[@piiinkDeluxe]

​@@circleinfosomatic trauma therapy. Trauma release exercises. Something, that works WITH the body because that's where trauma is.

[@piiinkDeluxe]

But then I propose every CBT/DBT therapist should be skilled in spotting trauma in a patient so that they can either change the method or refer them to another therapist. I got to the point where i thought therapy can't help me because they were only using behavioral therapy on me when it was actually CPTSD. like, i couldn't get out of the bed in the morning due to exhaustion from trauma and generally lacked a drive to live and they were like "well, try harder!". Thanks, I had been trying my hardest all my life and that is probably why I ended up in this clinic...

[@MountainPearls]

Had I listened to the therapist who did CBT with me…I would have died from a very real physical problem. He told me I needed to “stop searching for an answer for my health issues by going to different doctor/getting tests and learn to cope.” I got very depressed and was in quite a bit of pain. As it would turn out, I was misdiagnosed and needed a pretty major surgery.

[@carolbaker2773]

Im judging based solely on your picture, but do you identify as cis fem? I only ask because women with pain are frequently disregarded and misdiagnosed, and it needs to be talked about more. Im cis fem and my primary doctor referred me to a therapist for abdominal pain because he thought it was in my head. It turns out that therapy (while it was actually good for me for other reasons) can't actually help with a hiatal hernia that is causing acid reflux (I just didnt know what that was at 16).

[@Nick_Taylor.]

@@carolbaker2773Anthony William (Medical Medium) talks at length about doctors misdiagnosing women.

[@nataliaalfonso2662]

Hahah sorry but so many therapists are like that. It isn’t funny but it is cosmically absurd how many people unknown who has fully died or become irreparably ill/injured bc therapists seem to forget ILLNESSES exist. Like maybe it isn’t “stress” or “tRAuMa” giving the patient that headache or those heart palpitations or the diarrhea. Can literally be strep or meningitis or endocarditis or cancer. They’re just truly…….. not doctors lol. They’re not medical professionals. And you’d think that’s fine, right? But they seem to know LESS than the average person about medicine and germ theory. So they’re never referring anyone out or even suggesting anyone go to doctors! Glad you survived. Many do not.

[@carolbaker2773]

@@nataliaalfonso2662 At least in my case, it was my MEDICAL DOCTOR who referred me to a therapist. I trust a therapist to be part of a team to treat emotional and behavioral issues, but its systemic in the medical field that doctors do not treat women in pain the same way they treat men. Like I can have anxiety as well as appendicitis and I would love for your to exclude every other cause of a symptom before we just go with my brain is the issue.

[@no_peace]

​@@carolbaker2773they did that to me too several times. I'm autistic and don't perform pain. I literally need my gallbladder removed but i had like 5 other major things before that including hEDS and dysautonomia that they said were a psych disorder

[@kyrieT418]

CBT does not stop people from violently abusing you. I was constantly confused why I was being talked down to by therapists about how I felt with a broken nose. It really doesn't matter how the patient acts, violent people are violent regardless of your ability to do CBT exercises.

[@Asfgxff]

Exactly why I say the wrong people are in therapy. Cluster b types continue to run rampant on society unchecked.

[@RowanRiverstone]

Invalidating, yes. My CBT therapist always made me feel very unheard. Any time I talked about trauma from abuse, she acted like I didn't say anything at all and was basically like, "Well, what positive things can we focus on instead?" It felt like nothing more than toxic positivity.

[@Falhaes]

This sounds like you stumbled across someone who dgaf about their patients, my god. But then again, this sounds very bizzarre to me as a former CBT patient.

[@melodycook4561]

Exactly this. I felt like I had to emotionally prepare to defend my own feelings as valid and fight for my right to feel them. It felt so minimizing to spill my heart about the soul crushing weight of society bringing me down, to basically feel like I was told "have you tried just not feeling that way?" 😐

[@SLYKM]

That doesn't sound like it was a helpful application of CBT, or that therapist didn't make sure you understood. CBT is supposed to help you think through feelings and try to not let you be ruled by fear and anxiety. I don't remember any part of the cbt triangle including "ignore feelings just think of something more positive." It is helpful for people who make assumptions about stuff they can't know (such as how someone else feels) and the future (that didn't happen yet) and instead focus on how the patient feels and what they can change and control. Which yes, is unhelpful if your anxiety and fear is being caused by the past or stuff that can't be changed bc of other forces (oppression and poverty). Also CBT could just not be right for you and it sucks that a therapist treated you that way.

[@unseenmolee]

toxic positivity is the perfect way to describe it

[@RJones-tn5vg]

I would be so angry

[@Biiku_]

The military sexual trauma therapists through the VA and on active duty all made me do CBT. 47 times. I have all of the binders. I also have depression and adhd and childhood trauma. My problem with CBT was my awareness of how unsafe I am at all times. Being told I am safe when I am not made my recovering process a whole decade longer. My children suffer. My marriage suffers. And my rage is never ending.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

That's a large part of the problem I have with CBT. It was one of the very few options that my health insurance covered mental health professionals would provide. Admittedly, it was somewhat helpful for my OCD, but it was completely useless for the ADHD (and likely ASD) related issues. It did improve my ability to mask a lot and I'm not sure that it did anything for me that simply understanding that feelings are information, not facts and that when I was having anxiety, that I could just choose to sit through it and have faith that none of the OCD related horrible outcomes would materialize.

[@sarahnelson8836]

I found that “Peace is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Han (a monk who lived through the Vietnam war) was helpful for me: I don’t think it is a perfect book but the idea of embracing and composting my emotions into something good for me was very important. Also “Unlocking the Stress Cycle” was just amazing for helping me really move into a somatic therapeutic approach

[@herahagstoz6934]

You are intelligent and valid. I’m sorry you were harmed and I wish we didn’t all have to walk through this world knowing how vulnerable we all are from one moment to the next. It’s infuriating for people with professional power to invalidate others when it’s just gaslighting in the grossest way. It makes the world sicker. Unnecessarily. And it murders the possibilities for truth and effective action.

[@diablominero]

@@SmallSpoonBrigadeI got the "feelings are information" message both cheaper and better by taking the wrong blend of drugs. I ended up with a rapid onset of anxiety that seemed to be about everything I thought about, whether or not it was threat-shaped, which was obviously an entirely chemical process. It went away once the drugs left my system. Since then, I've been better at sitting through feelings that obviously had no basis in reality.

[@minreie]

In EMDR we are asked to have a positive cognition. I go with "I am usually safe" because "I am safe" is too far. Of corse, that only works if you are usually safe. I'm sorry you have been through so much. Feeling unsafe is one of the worst feelings!

[@the.masked.one.studio4899]

Cbt does not work for me. I was emotionally neglected and I’m autistic. I naturally try to think myself out of feeling anything. My new therapist just lets me rant and rant and I can’t tell you. How amazing it has been

[@elizabethj4450]

Yes! I intellectualize my feelings in a really unhealthy way and didn't even understand I was doing it...cbt exacerbates that. It's all thinking, fuck feeling

[@caitlinnnnnnnnnnnnnn]

I'm autistic and was neglected too! Had the exact same experience. Glad you're in a better place

[@4blueland]

Hard relate ☘️

[@PamsPrettyPlants]

Oof, big same here

[@ellismartiskainen7729]

yeah CBT feels like i'm just not being believed

[@dinosaysrawr]

The most important idea I've extracted from CBT is that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, others, and the world matter, and are shaped by our subjective "filters," which are informed and influenced by various internal and external forces. Thus, it behooves us to ask ourselves how the stories we're telling ourselves are helpful, true, and healthy, and how they might not be. The thing I don't like about CBT is how often it's just frankly used to straight-up gaslight people, especially those who are enduring genuine injustice, true suffering, or real struggles that they have every right to feel upset about.

[@bellonasky2502]

This illustrates perfectly why it's great for some and not others. Changing those stories is probably helpful for everyone to some degree but knowing when you've gotten past that or it needs to be addressed after some healing takes a skilled therapist.

[@Sc-dd6hb]

What is the alternative? I have PTSD from childhood abuse. “Talk therapy” is awful for me, constantly dredging up the past & reliving the trauma - it makes me feel much worse!

[@katie4408]

^ Woah. YES!

[@bellonasky2502]

@@Sc-dd6hb Ketamine with a therapist! (I did it without the aid of a therapist that worked there and so trauma informed and trained in ketamine and i really don’t think you’re going to overcome the ptsd without that. You may feel great for a while but ketamine needs maintenance like any other medication and so you’ll eventually return to where you were before it.) Life changing and you aren’t adding to your distress because either you’re under the influence, or when doses get stronger or like me and just don’t talk either, they help your mood be good. It is healing on steroids though and so expect a crazy roller coaster at first (you might even be more depressed the day after but that’s just your brain processing and it doesn’t persist) but it does eventually smooth out and your mood stays good in between.

[@charleston1789]

@@Sc-dd6hb as stated in the video, often healing gets messy and painful before it gets better. If stuff is just being brought up and not being addressed in a way to reframe it, and if there’s no effort to get you in a better headspace before the session ends - yeah, that’s not likely helping much Perhaps finding a different therapist or technique to use might be helpful? Again, there’s lots of different ‘talk therapies’ - different stuff helps different folks. Several are listed in the video near the beginning

[@jillrodriguez6390]

OMG! I'm a psychologist who also sees the extreme limitations of CBT! Thanks for speaking up! In fact, the majority of behaviorism strategies can be highly ineffective in regards to healing the actual core issue. I think the reason these behavioral based interventions are used so much is because insurance companies love to limit sessions as much as possible. In addition, research done on interventions in general are funded by organizations and companies whose only goal is to limit sessions or by grad students who need a time efficient research projects for dissertations. I am not against the desire for speed but it is very unrealistic in practice.

[@Lucy-er5fl]

I'm also doing CBT for 2 months with my psychologist and I don't think I've made any progress since. When I was told to be neutral and observe my behaviors through a third person perspective and be "creative" in coping with my problems. I feel like it isn't a practical approach to people that experiencing mental or psychological difficulties, since they usually just go through the surface of the patients struggles and then when right back on to the "productive" and "functioning" sides. It kinda defend the purpose of why people seeking help at the first place.

[@thalmorbiznitch4028]

CBT felt like gaslighting to me. Because I WAS going through shit with trauma. My emotions and thoughts weren’t irrational. It feels like victim blaming. Like you feel like shit because you THINK this way.

[@autumnmoonfire3944]

Say it louder for the people in the back row. If the trauma is still occurring, or it’s institutional, CBT won’t help, because it’s not going to end the trauma, it literally cannot!

[@normanreichwald6158]

​@autumnmoonfire3944 you are absolutely right, but that is true about therapy in general regardless of the modality. It has nothing to do with CBT specifically.

[@minreie]

​@@normanreichwald6158I think that depends on the therapist. I have a great and helpful one now. But in the past, I have had ones that were always invalidating. The didn't want to hear about the trauma because "God already knows". The just wanted to pray even though I needed to talk about it.

[@notaburneraccount]

Them: *just don't think like that!*

[@xletragedyx]

​@@normanreichwald6158I don't agree at all. I've had very helpful therapy, but CBT did NOT work for me. I hated it. It was invalidating for me, like Mickey mentioned

[@irene_in_progress]

Yes-- have always felt an internal pushback against CBT. Like, "gaslight yourself into feeling okay!"

[@carnigoth]

That fits so well

[@notarobot1494]

yeah cbt can feel like going against all logic and assumptions in my head ^^; it worked when I was pushing *myself,* but being told by someone outside my perspective that my thoughts and past experiences were just… wrong- that was invalidating as hell =~=

[@Chelsea-ph6cs]

As an EMDR therapist, thank you for this. My coworkers and i talk all the time about how CBT fails so many. When you've been invalidated your entire life being told to just think differently or that's not true. So dismissive

[@kenthinkson2050]

EMDR is a cognitive behavioral therapy. To empathetically offer a suggestion, perhaps you talk all the time with your colleagues about how some particular CBT techniques fail to assist a person in dealing with their dysfunction?

[@brainbandaid5802]

EMDR is a purple hat therapy based on CBT. It has no proven mechanisms of change to set itself apart.

[@eevee2411]

@@kenthinkson2050 I think in general this video is about the 'cookie-cutter' CBT that people think about when we say CBT. The simple and direct 'let's see how we can reframe those thoughts' with worksheets and talking. There are many other, more in-depth and more specialised forms of CBT that don't really fall under that explanation & also don't fit what Mickey talks about in this video. So while they're forms of CBT they're not what this video is about and are more helpful imo.

[@Chelsea-ph6cs]

@kenthinkson2050 she is talking about CBT, which is its own modality. EMDR is not CBT. Technically all therapy is cognitive based except ECT. EMDR is the person using bilateral stimulation while thinking of their negative cognitions related to the memory they are working on. The brain is going the work and they are not talking through it.

[@kenthinkson2050]

@@Chelsea-ph6cs I'm very well aware of what EMDR is, and it is a cognitive behavioral therapy. This is part of the problem when pseudo-professionals talk about things, without using good, definitive language. By calling a therapeutic technique (she is referring to cognitive restructuring, a specific technique) that is used in dozens of cognitive behavioral therapies that have been repeatedly shown to help people address and mitigate dysfunction in their lives, "CBT" and then blaming CBT for patients' failures to get better... Mickey (and many of her fans here) is doing a disservice and misinforming literally thousands of individuals. The problem is far more nuanced than that, and yet pop psychology is now going to turn lots of people off to valid and useable therapies because they are a "CBT".

[@landaywilliams6977]

I hate CBT so much. Here's why: 1. It places no value on people's internal experience, rather focusing on external markers of well being (ahem functioning). There is no accounting for a person who "does all the right things" but still is in a great deal of pain. This gives the patient the impression that their pain doesn't matter and that all people care about is whether you function. 2. It promises that if you do all the right things, you will feel better. If you don't feel better, then you're doing it wrong 3. Rather than looking for the wisdom in difficult emotions, it seeks to dissect and dismantle and minimize difficult emotions as illogical distortions. 4. It is ripe for victim-blaming 5. It assumes the client has low self awareness and emotional intelligence.

[@amelian9677]

👏🏼

[@Nick_Taylor.]

Thank you!

[@no_peace]

Ah yeah! That's what it is! You CAN'T WIN if you're disabled because if the "treatment" didn't work then by default you're doing it wrong! If you did it right it would work 🙄🙄🙄😩

[@miezepups15]

This is why I started to ask for extremely specific instructions ln how, when and for how long I should practice an intervention, and at what point I could confidently say that it actually wasn't working for me. I never got a straight answer to the last part, lnly blank stares, like 'what do you mean doesn't work? It always works. If it doesn't you're doing it wrong?'

[@stoneneils]

Nobody cares about your inner experience, DBT and CBT are so you conduct your life successfully and don't end up a whining depressed loser by middle age on youtube making videos on how everything, everyone and everywhere sucks. This entire generation needs psychotherapy but all they get is pills and the results are in: Many are lonely angry poor virgins.

[@Raztiana]

As a patient I hate CBT as well. My emotions are my emotions, the end. Then we can change some of the circumstances, that makes me feel this way, so my emotions change as well. It doesn't mean that I have to deal with my emotions all the time. Sometimes I "send them out in the garden" (my former psychologist's favourite visualisation), which means that I recognise their existence, but not letting them interfere with my life right now. One of the things, that I have spent the most energy learning in therapy is that MY EMOTIONS ARE VALID, no matter how "unpretty" they may be. That no matter what, the best thing I can do for myself is to love and care for myself. Knowing my psychologist a little makes it easier to open up. I've had depression since I was 13 (which is 20 years ago), and this means that there's a lot of things, where I simply don't know if it's normal. My psychologist saying "I feel this way too" makes a world of difference.

[@motorcitymangababe]

3:00 this reminds me of when I met a good friend of my FIL. Dude had cancer and when he told me my kneejerk response was "wow, that must suck ass" and he said it felt so much better than the dozens of people trying to mask their discomfort of reality with well wishes that were useless. Knowing someone else knew and agreed his situation did in fact suck ass was the reaction he appreciated the most.

[@dogscott7881]

I feel that. It’s so rare someone is just like, “yo, that fucking sucks” when your past, and especially current, trauma comes up. Like, don’t tell I shudda done this and that. Don’t tell me other people got it worse. And PLEASE FOR GODS SAKE DONT TELL ME IT WILL GET BETTER. Goddamn, why is it so hard to just validate someone’s shit?

[@asea1203]

​@@dogscott7881Also, I hate it when they try to make me consider the situation from the other person's perspective. I already know that my parents were suffering from their own issues and their own trauma when they messed up my life. But, that doesn't mean what's happening to me is somehow less bearable 😢

[@magnoliaskogen]

"That sucks" is one of the most soothing things someone can say to me. I wish more people defaulted to that response

[@junaseras]

Your story reminds me of a very eye-opening session i had with my therapist (psychoanalyst). One time i told him how my parents treated me when they where disappoined in me or i didn't behave they would like me to behave and i was really detached in from my feelings in that moment while my therapist got angry af for me. It was great mirroring on his part for the Anger i should've felt in that moment. Validating the feelings of others is such an important skill to have especially as a therapist imo.

[@rainiminiatures2184]

​@@magnoliaskogen so true. As long as it's not said in a sarcastic tone, it really feels validating.

[@larencurry5230]

11:15 CTB felt good TO me but it wasn’t actually good FOR me. I’m a person who doesn’t feel their emotions easily (trauma), a very black and white rigid thinker (autism), and a massive people pleaser (trauma and adhd/rsd). I hyperintellectualize everything as a lifelong coping mechanism, so the CBT homework, over-analysis, “report card,” etc made me feel like I was “winning” therapy because I was making my therapist happy. I was basically overachieving and doing well on a test, which is what my inner value has relied on my entire life. It felt good, but I was just repeating the patterns of my childhood by making the authority figure in the room think I was smart and therefore proud of me. My ability to feel my emotions, which was one of the main reasons I had gone back to therapy in the first place, actually diminished further while I was doing CBT

[@eevee2411]

So relatable!! Nothing truly changed for me until I tried a somatic experience type therapy that made me focus on my bodily experiences and how I was actually feeling. It was like 'oh shit so here's where the real issue is' after therapy had always been pretty easy and I'd been 'doing great!' at therapy lmao. I was like omg finally I know I'm not crazy for feeling like something is wrong, because this is showing me how severely neglected this part of me is.

[@KiraRagged]

Oh i hear you there, i'm not autistic by any means but I am heavily depersonalized as a primary coping mechanism for trauma. I can tell you the most horrible shit about my life without batting an eyelash much less shedding a tear. There's absolutely no way to heal me without breaking that down first but instead i was a model student who already knew a bunch of the theory behind CBT and could talk a great game.

[@eurekamreum5458]

This is my exact story, thank you for sharing it.

[@sarahr8311]

Yeah some of the CBT stuff is... yes, I can push my emotions to the side and do what I need to do. But then they don't come back afterwards, and feeling bleak nothingness is the issue I'm here to address soooooooo

[@TheAngryMarshmallow]

THIS PART.

[@elias486]

As a trans guy with C-PTSD and a host of other issues, CBT worked for surface symptom management. But the real work only really started with proper trauma therapy and EMDR, combined with strong medication. If I had stayed in the "surface" area of my mental health management, I probably would've been hospitalized by now. You can't work away heavy societal discrimination and trauma. If your issue is "at a young age I realized that a part of my core identity is hated and made fun of by everyone around me", and the world is constantly reinforcing it, there is no way a single person (a therapist, a family member,...) can love you or coach you through it. This needs much more intervention, validation, and practical action, and societal accountability and change.

[@jhmi7877]

This is what I resonate with the most. I flourish in well-organized environments, so CBT helps in walking me along specific paths. I'm always ruminating over every portion of my life, so CBT is kind of useless in the aspect of "using logic over emotions" (since I do that already anyway!), but when it's been used well by a practitioner, it helps me focus on more specific things instead of me trying to charge through all the paths at once. *However*, I need it to be combined with other modalities that really target underlying causes. We won't see progress otherwise.

[@tealkerberus748]

Sending hugs. You had a right to feel accepted and loved throughout your childhood and society needs to sort its shit out and stop traumatising and terrorising kids for existing.

[@toni2309]

I'm transmasc myself, and not having hormones gave me a lot of dissociation and just an overall thing of my emotions and sensations being wrong. You can't think yourself out of having hormones that make you feel bad. After getting hormones, I was glad I knew CBT to target the depression I was falling into back then when all the emotions hit me, and I was struggling with all the expectations I put on myself for social transition and overthinking the whole social transition thing, so I find that it had limited use.

[@TheAngryMarshmallow]

Fucking THANK YOU. yes, (also hi fellow trans guy here!) to ALL of this. I was in treatment for trauma and I was like, yeah, the reason I tried to end myself is because I loved myself, which sounds twisted, but the amount of aggression and transphobia I experienced was too exhausting at a certain point and I got tired of fighting it. People still think it had to do with not loving myself. No, I knew the world was wrong, and that there was nothing wrong with me.

[@e.s.r5809]

Right, exactly. I think there's legit uses for CBT when the problem is behavioural. It helped me stop having panic attacks with social phobia, and it helped me get out the house. It didn't cure the underlying anxiety. It helped me break specific, negative habits which fed into my anxiety and perpetuated it. It was a really important first step, but not the whole journey. It's like prescribing pain meds to a patient so they can start the treatment that'll fix the underlying issue. You can't leave it at pain meds. If you don't fix the actual problem, it'll keep getting worse until painkillers can't even mask the symptoms any more.

[@persephone1001]

Thank you so much for this. My therapist has been trying to convince me that my core beliefs around the sexism I've experienced are possibly wrong and are making me unhappy, but the reality is that I've been sexually assaulted multiple times, repeatedly sexually harassed at work, and forced out of my PhD because of my gender. Not to mention emotionally abusive relationships with sexist men. I was given CBT when I had a breakdown in my 20s - the thinking that was deemed "faulty" was actually autism, ADHD, dyspraxia and PTSD. I only found out that I'm neurodivergent 16 years later.

[@av9049-e7l]

Oh god, i am so sorry this has happened to you. It believe that more talking is needed around the issue how practices like CBT help to maintain the status quo in the society, discouraging people to trust their feelings and keeping people from trusting their instincts if it goes against the norm. That goes directly into opposition with feminist thinking, and that was my immediate turn-off with CBT. It reinforces mijsogynist norms by not questioning them! Maybe the practice has developed but for me, it was a red flag.

[@StreetfighterU]

@@av9049-e7lit’s also racist, it caters toward white people

[@shimmerence]

i went through an adolescent treatment program for anxiety/depression that used both CBT and DBT sessions. the DBT was so much more practical because we were given tools for distress tolerance and talked about radical acceptance. CBT would be like “I get anxious in crowds” “Why do you get anxious around people? Do you have a negative thought about that? Let’s reframe the situation.” And I would be like “No I’m just overstimulated.”

[@thalmorbiznitch4028]

My therapist who practiced DBT (worked with him for almost 4yr) had the mindset of “well okay we have those thoughts and feelings and stuff, let’s try and work through them and accept you will just feel this way sometimes, so you can still function and so these feelings don’t upend your whole existence.”

[@Falhaes]

Yasss and this is how CBT should be done!

[@TheMichelex20]

This sounds a lot like an ACT treatment modality. Acceptance Commitment Therapy.

[@Sentient__universe]

That’s extremely balanced and healthy

[@nadjak3410]

That was my experience as well. When I started therapy I basically thought (and told my therapist) that behavioral therapy was supposed to make me think and act "straight" so I wouldn't be such a miserable slob. She pointed out pretty quickly that her approach wasn't deficiency oriented and that it was more about being accepting of thoughts just as thoughts that don't define my whole existence.

[@steggopotamus]

And i think constantly remembering to include the context is important for someone who is triggered easily

[@dannelle17]

CBT made me ruminate HARDER than I was before. 1000% not for everyone.

[@cathycupcakes]

I’ve said this to so many therapists! It just reinforces thoughts -> feelings -> behavior triangle.

[@lemsip207]

@cathycupcakes When often feelings or instincts arise first. Thoughts follow. The authorities want us all thinking like them, not trusting our instincts.

[@anamakesthings]

Absolutely! I did a couple of sessions after I had gotten discharged from hospital. I had su***dal ideations after someone close to me drugged me and r**ed me. + All the baggage from a very abusive childhood. Nothing felt more retraumatizing and unhelpful than those techniques. I'm grateful for having a therapist who saw how much harm this was doing to me, as I didn't even have the vocabulary, back then, to express what was going on. This is me reporting, 10 years later, and I'm so proud of how far I've come in my mental health journey BECAUSE of dropping out of CBT. I don't even want to imagine who badly this would have messed me up if I didn't have a knowledgeable therapist advocating for me. I guess, moral of the story is - spend years, if you have to, in search for a therapist suited to YOU, because when you do find that match, it's magic 💚

[@carinaluxford241]

If you find yourself ruminating because you have OCD, then general CBT will usually exacerbate the problem. What does help to manage this condition is a specific form of CBT called Exposure and Response Prevention therapy.

[@dannelle17]

@@carinaluxford241 I dont have OCD though

[@thalmorbiznitch4028]

I clicked SO FAST I HATE CBT. Most people who tell me therapy didn’t work for them, only did CBT, and it was absolutely useless. I also feel like it often doesn’t work for people with trauma or who are neurodivergent.

[@jclyntoledo]

Yes! I think the major part of that is because people assume that you have to change the thought pattern and that that will in turn change your feeling. When a lot of the time the feeling comes first and you don't necessarily have negative thoughts around it just a feeling that you don't feel safe or that you feel this impending doom awaiting you. So the part of CBT saying to say affirmations to yourself or to try to think better doesn't necessarily help the feeling and I agree that it does feel like your gaslighting yourself.

[@thalmorbiznitch4028]

@@jclyntoledothis is what I’ve tried explaining to Neurotypical people and they get so confused. My feelings aren’t usually thought based, they are physical triggers and I will often feel anxious and get a bit of adrenaline when I don’t even know why because my thoughts are still logical and functional. But then I’m like “wait, where’s the threat? What’s going on” trying to figure out why. It would get to a point where I have an anxiety headache (tension in the back of my head and eyes, that I get every single time) before I even realize why I’m anxious. My feelings usually come first before any “distortion of thoughts”

[@Popper_Drop]

THIS ^^ especially if you have both as well - I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety in HS, medicated and it was just kinda left at that. Meanwhile I was Autistic and growing a LOT of trauma behind the scenes with that and a whole lot else. No therapist I went to back then ever helped. It always felt like lying to myself which always felt nasty and it would never stick because my brain just works different

[@Boooo_39]

I'm glad you mentioned neurodivergent I've never felt CBT worked for me. I'm neurodivergent and wonder if that's partially why

[@fredriksdottir]

I came to this feeling and had a therapist ( we were just doing talk therapy and figuring out all the things going on with me and it was helpful) who was like DAMN...I think this is a thing as well!!! They also had ADD and CPTSD, which was probably why their approach to therapy was the way it was ( and they worked with some stuffs sceanrios, like juvenile SA offenders-they didn't shy from difficult cases). I miss being able to pick my own therapist and have a say so in what I want to try vs doing and taking things that are harmful to me, but if I don't... I'll be viewed as a treatment refusal or that I have stopped seeking treatment and then it be assumed that it is no longer an issue and have further support structures taken away from me. (Had to go from paying for mental health care myself and being able to carry at least a little insurance on my own, to relying on the VA purely).

[@sunshinemand]

I’ve had horrible experiences with CBT. I had a few phone sessions once. I hated them, they made me feel worse. In the end I told the therapist I was feeling tonnes better just so she’d discharge me and that I wouldn’t have her dreaded phone calls. Another therapist was annoyed with me for showing up in her office again with anxiety after she’d discharged me previously saying “I don’t know what to do with you, after all the work we’ve done you shouldn’t be back here.”

[@sarahjaye4117]

Ughh

[@Bobelsey11]

CBT made me feel even more alienated. Like, I was finally seeking help and found that even the people who were supposed to be the experts and finally help me understand myself couldn’t make the way I felt make sense to me. It made me feel like I would never get any answers.

[@mrbluesky420]

i had a multitude of cbt experiences as a teenager that were really harmful to my trajectory as a trauma survivor. my problem was that i was in an active abuse situation that i wasn't yet aware of. when i tried to gently bring up things in my life that felt wrong or hurtful, my therapists at the time would focus on trying to change the way i was thinking about my life. when you're already being put through gaslighting as a part of abuse and mental health professionals are responding to your distress as something internal to be fixed it really does a number. for this reason, i'll always refuse cbt as an adult :/

[@amandamandamands]

Yes that is a really big issue with it, they have predetermined that you are having faulty thinking that needs to be adjusted rather than there is actual shit happening in your life that your brain is reacting to. It is almost like it is beyond their comprehension that what you are reacting to could actually be happening.

[@cygnelle1232]

Sounds sooo similar to my experience. Thanks for sharing!

[@toni2309]

I felt the same way when I was trying to bring up the very real struggles I was having as an autistic teen trying to make friends, that it was deemed that I would have to just think good thoughts and put myself out there.

[@katiec3768]

Similar experience for me too. Thanks for sharing this.

[@internetstranger5112]

I was in almost the same situation. I’m sorry you went through that

[@maddienoelle22]

This video is so validating! Honestly, I do have beef with CBT therapists, because they never listen to me when I say that CBT doesn’t work for me. With the combination of autism, ADHD, and cPTSD, I’ve never felt like I’ve even had enough control over my thoughts to change them. My mind moves way too fast to actively change my thoughts. I recently found a neurodivergent therapist and the first thing she said when I told her that CBT doesn’t work for me was “CBT doesn’t work for autistic people”. I felt so validated! I just wish it didn’t take me my whole life to find a therapist that actually understands my brain.

[@knightory]

Love this comment so much because I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, autism & ADHD and I have such an aversion towards CBT. I've thought about why I avoid it, and it boils down to how CBT fails to structure thoughts and feelings around oppression, childhood trauma, socioeconomic status... like, those things are very real and need to be approached differently. What has helped for me is genuine support systems, having an open space to work through ACTUALLY PROCESSING the complex trauma, working on naming and identifying emotions. Instead of labeling my thoughts as distorted, I label them as real and existing for a reason and now I have been treating myself way gentler these days. I focus more on accommodations for my daily life and it's given me room to heal!

[@asea1203]

I feel like some therapists only train on CBT, and don't have any other tools to work with. I once specifically told a therapist that I don't want CBT, but even then she tried to sneak in CBT techniques into our session. It's like, she didn't believe me when I said CBT makes me feel awful and tried to sneak it into the session in the same way parents would try to sneak in vegetables into the meals of naughty children. It pissed me off so much , I never went back to her.

[@therabbithat]

That's really prejudiced of her in my book. Some Autistic people adore CBT and there is even a really prominent Autistic CBT therapist in my city. It doesn't work for SOME Autistic people, everyone is different

[@BethH992]

This comment is also extremely validating!!

[@toni2309]

I have all three, too. I'm also trans and not having hormones made me dissociate a lot. CBT was useless before hormones, but knowing the techniques actually came in handy once I got some more access to my emotions.

[@Miriela480]

My hot take is that CBT is not a great therapeutic modality, but it has led to the development of some pretty good ones.

[@MickeyAtkins]

Ok definitely this!! Like I said it is an evidence based and safe modality too so there’s definitely good to be had from it! Just the execution sometimes can be a little 😬

[@elizabethlebaron9545]

@@MickeyAtkinsDBT can also be misused. Some practitioners really push it and a BPD diagnosis on CPTSD people, and it can re-traumatize people as well.

[@Nashleyism]

​@@MickeyAtkinsHi, thanks for the video 😊 Could you explain what does it mean that it is safe modality?

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I've personally seen CBT be extremely effective. But, it makes me massively uncomfortable that it was one of the very few options that my health insurance would allow due to "evidence based medicine" being their thing. I'm diagnosed OCD and ADHD, based on the validated autism screening questionaires I've taken, I'm roughly 95% that I'm on that spectrum as well, and CBT does not work for folks with that sort of combination of diagnoses. The ADHD brain just does not want to stick with this sort of thing long enough to get any sort of results. The OCD and ASD brains spend far too much time thinking about such things and not enough time actually experiencing the world. It all leads to a complete waste of time when other options might well be a better fit. All I personally got out of CBT was massively improved masking skills and not much else.

[@catsmom129]

True. Personally I’ve had great success with EMDR. It incorporates aspects of CBT. You process negative thoughts and install more positive thoughts. The difference is that EMDR aims to use the whole nervous system, not just the verbal & logical parts of the brain. That’s very important for trauma survivors, because the non-verbal survival instincts get so triggered. A purely intellectual modality may not reach those parts of the brain. EMDR aims to get the different parts “talking” to each other. Of course, EMDR is another modality that can help some and harm others. You need to find the right match.

[@finchfry]

The self-disclosure thing is so important to balance. Sure, I don't want my therapist trauma dumping on me. But, when I was having anxiety attacks about moving across the country, it was really nice and comforting when my therapist shared her story of moving cross-country. It was nice to bond over music tastes when we're talking about things that can be calming. That seems like a totally appropriate and desirable type of self-disclosure

[@Eternally_screaming_idiot]

I had a therapist share little anecdotes with me because it helped me realize I wasn't alone in my experiences. Having examples instead of just being told I wasn't alone helps.

[@Icantread766]

I was afraid of talking about being gay to my therapist and she told me she was raised by two moms and I immediately felt way more safe with her in a way I wouldn't have for a long time (I love her she's amazing even if she does call me out on my shit lol)

[@rayay248]

I feel like I need multiple therapy sessions just to help me get over the compulsion to “get an A” in therapy

[@afreaknamedallie1707]

CBT made me actually angry, it was so gaslighting. In one of the workbooks I was given the (male) author literally used as an example of when a woman experienced sexual harassment on the street and "chose" to be upset at it as an example of letting your negative emotions control you. I was there for the fallout of a years long experience of sexual trauma and the way the abuser has been able to turn my entire family against me on this issue, so much so that 10 years later I'm expected to pretend nothing is wrong even though he literally admitted recently how he made things up and demonized me to discredit me as I sought help from my family. I saw red, I was so upset to see a therapy modality literally telling me I was illogical for being upset at what had happened (found a phone recording me in the shower, amongst other things) while this supposed authority genuinely suggested this hypothetical womam should take pride in being sexually harrassed on the street so that she doesn't have to feel negative emotions about being objectified. And that fuck was supposedly one of the best names in CBT? Count me the fuck out.

[@bellonasky2502]

That's a man excusing toxic male behaviors at it's finest. It's definitely not about thoughts but a very visceral feeling driving those thoughts. You survived hell! The man is 100% guilty and not you. Expecting you to pretend it didn't impact your body (as the book The Body Keeps Score and Dr Amen can show on brain scans) is just a form of victim shaming. Sick

[@W0rldfire]

Oh WOW that is absolutely awful and not even how feelings work at all. People don't choose their feelings in the moment like they're picking veggies at a grocery store, feelings are a result of beliefs and someone who is upset at being sexually harassed is springing off of beliefs like "I deserve to be respected" and "this behavior is a potential threat." It's dangerous to dishonor or dismiss beliefs like these which are reality-based and healthy just to feel better in the moment. It will leave the person worse off mentally and put them in more danger. And for what? A cheap shot of feel-good so they can put in another 40 hours enriching their boss? The horrible is off the charts here. (Incidentally this should be what is meant by "feelings are always valid." If someone has abusive beliefs they will be upset at a person in their life having and enforcing boundaries, and that feeling is valid insofar as it's genuinely felt. However, it doesn't make the abusive person's reaction correct, and they need to do the work of interrogating their belief that others shouldn't have boundaries or comfort levels around them.)

[@marnenotmarnie259]

WHAT

[@zoelawrence568]

Yeeeessss I've similarly seen examples in literature that are just blatant gaslighting. Like you couldn't go 4 examples without straying into unhinged territory? How hard is it to think of 4 examples where this technique actually is an appropriate approach. I also found it very telling that a while back the jobcentre was proposing that jobseekers have to attend compulsory CBT. Dystopian ass behaviour

[@xbluebae]

Holy shit that's insane...

[@aceshigh5157]

the biggest lesson from my cbt experience was the realization that i could drive my own car. originally, i thought that i needed an authority figure to help me, but as time went on, i disagreed with the direction that she wanted to go in and we had a power struggle. disagreeing with her was the beginning of my connection with myself/intuition, which ultimately led to me finding the right solution for me.

[@freethegays]

That's such a great way to describe it. I feel like I went through a similar thing

[@isabelkloberdanz6329]

So in a way CBT helped you lol

[@isabelkloberdanz6329]

I kinda had a similar thing where I was just tired of the extremely rudimentary and incomplete ways I was therapized for years by individual therapists and by treatment centers so I started watching KZbin videos about attachment theory and family systems and personality disorders and I realized things about myself that started a snowballing of progress and curiosity about psychology. Being in treatment helped because of the structure, social support, case management, and simply being outside of my family system, but the therapy and the content of groups just was not helpful and it felt so patronizing, boring, and invalidating to talk about the same shit from a CBT and occasionally DBT lens that I was very resistant to it. Same with the extremely dogmatic and moralizing nature of 12 step programs. I’m lucky that I’m smart and intellectually curious enough to do that for myself, and it built a lot of self trust knowing I did it more or less on my own, but it’s extremely frustrating that other people may never get to that point because the CBT gaslighting or AA brainwashing has gotten to them.

[@biboybunny]

I had a therapist as a teen. I could go on and on about all the ways she made me feel invalidated and worse. How it feels like she cared more about keeping her job than she did about actually helping me. But the thing I think about the most is how she told me not to think about something. As there was nothing I could really do and it was causing me significant distress. Which fair enough. The next appointment she brought up the topic. After I told her I was trying not to think about it. She told me it was her job to bring up tough things. So I started talking about it she kept asking questions. Then said I was talking about the topic too much. I to this day have no clue what she wanted me to do. She brought it up and made me feel like I had to talk about it.

[@robertairvin2310]

I'm sorry you went through that. Some therapists really don't seem to know what they're doing and I had a similar experience with a "mindfulness" therapist that oversimplified it to breathing exercises that can make anxiety worse when your goal is to reduce anxiety. It really stinks that there are therapists who get a whole dang degree and then procede to throw this lovely thing called nuance out the window.

[@bingewatchforever1587]

Yikes.

[@Al_ate_my_soup]

I struggled in therapy because as an autistic person my genuine experience of the world is often interpreted as cognitive distortions by therapists. Like I have a lot of anxiety socializing but it’s not because I’m afraid of something unlikely, I have so much anxiety while socializing because it’s inherently uncomfortable and hard for me and in especially loud or bright environments making eye contact and being expected to speak can lead to me completely shutting down. It’s not me that needs changing because the way my brain is structured cannot be changed, I need a therapist knowledgeable about lots of ways I can be accommodated so I know how to advocate for myself and create plans for when things go wrong for me but I have yet to find a therapist who can give me advice and support that is better than my autistic friends

[@Bebevevevebebe]

I’m so glad to see somebody talk about this. I was put into cbt immediately on my first session before ever even doing regular therapy. I felt like I was being gaslit about my own reality, being told things aren’t actually bad but that my emotions are making them worse than they are. Completely dismissing the reality that I live. Seeing this video and comments from all the people who also had bad experiences makes me a little more willing to try therapy again.

[@Mx.Rainbow_Goth]

emdr saved my life. because i can logic all of the trauma, but that doesnt help get rid of teh constant fear that i will be abused again or the sadness and anger that goes along with prolonged abuse. you KNOW its not your fault, but then you cant hel;p but think "but if its not my fault, why does it keep happening?"

[@Sentient__universe]

How does EMDR work?

[@ellatroy]

Please share. I could really use some advice/personal experience standpoint on it.

[@kenthinkson2050]

And yet, EMDR is a cognitive behavior therapy (CBT)... I think it is interesting how so many are dismissing CBT without understanding that they're talking about techniques used in CBT, not CBT itself.

[@gaycryptidhours]

@@Sentient__universeThis therapy is based on the theory that traumatic events aren’t properly processed in the brain when they happen. This is why they continue to affect us - with nightmares, flashbacks, and feelings of the trauma happening again - long after the actual trauma is over. When something reminds you of the trauma, your brain and body react as though it’s happening again. The brain isn’t able to tell the difference between the past and the present. This is where EMDR comes in. The idea, known as the adaptive information processing model, is that you can “reprocess” a disturbing memory to help you move past it. This therapy aims to change the way that the traumatic memories are stored in your brain. Once your brain properly processes the memory, you should be able to remember the traumatic events without experiencing the intense, emotional reactions that characterize post-traumatic stress. During an EMDR therapy session, your therapist will ask you to briefly focus on a trauma memory. Then, they’ll instruct you to perform side-to-side eye movements while thinking of the memory. This engages both sides of your brain and is termed bilateral stimulation. If you have visual processing issues, your therapist may use rhythmic tapping on both of your hands or play audio tones directed towards both ears. ( psychcentral.com/health/emdr-therapy#how-does-it-work )

[@gaycryptidhours]

@@ellatroy It really helped me get a grasp on understanding why I couldn't just get control of my thoughts or strong panic reactions. I had to look back into the memories, to be in a safe space to actually look at what happened and how that warped my nervous system to view a frustrated sigh as DEFCON 1. It wasn't by any means easy, I'd be exhausted by the end of the session and still reeling afterwards. While the thought of just tracking a finger back and forth while tapping into the trigger seemed like hypnosis silliness at first, it had a profound effect on my quality of life.

[@crazycorgiladyus7418]

I’ve never clicked on a video so fast. As a patient/therapy client it feels SO refreshing and validating to hear a therapist echo my own feelings and dislike towards CBT, so THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this. After my own experience with it, I felt very strongly that CBT is just medically approved gaslighting, and your first two points about how it invalidates the real lived experiences of systemic oppression by marginalized people, and the intricacies of complex trauma perfectly describe why I feel this way. As a religious trauma and purity culture survivor, I was told all the time growing up that the thought processes behind my doubts and feelings of discomfort about what my conservative evangelical Southern Baptist church was teaching, and my crippling fear of hell and being left behind in the rapture, were irrational, wrong, and not valid. CBT felt way too similar to that exact same rhetoric. It also crosses the line into victim-blaming IMO, because if you tell someone that their anxiety, depression, etc. is the result of their own “distorted” or “faulty” thought processes, then that’s basically like saying it’s their own fault they feel the way they do, which is super fucked up.

[@MickeyAtkins]

I’m so sorry you had such an awful experience!! I’m glad I could validate that it’s not just you though!!

[@crazycorgiladyus7418]

@@MickeyAtkins Thank you!! I’ve seen all your other videos, so as soon as I saw the title I already had a feeling that we would share some of the same sentiments on this topic. I’m in a much better place now, thanks to a wonderful and lovely EMDR therapist. But I still have a strong disdain for CBT lol. Not just because of my own experience and the points you mentioned, but also because a friend of mine almost lost a loved one because years of CBT for health anxiety/hypochondria had basically trained him (the loved one) to dismiss all his physical symptoms as psychosomatic or anxiety related, so he didn’t think to consider that he was having a real health problem until it was almost too late. That’s another problematic aspect of CBT that I think doesn’t get enough consideration.

[@nicolawainwright]

This feels like it came from my own brain! I remember my CBT therapist saying things like -but you’ve worked on that already- As if filling out a folder packed with individual papers about how to do something somehow equated to having actually accomplished it

[@OrigamiJ88]

​@crazycorgiladyus7418 My therapist told me that I "think about my health too much" - I'm chronically ill, was having some new related issues that were affecting my vision, my parents were going through some serious health issues themselves that indirectly were potentially affecting my health, I'd been going through some emotional lows and highs from a potentially life-threatening health issue, and less than 12 hours prior to this appointment, I'd discovered additional information about my doctor massively dropping the ball in a way that could have gotten me killed. I already have issues with downplaying my health issues, and after that my brain just short-circuited for a bit. I also had to keep explaining that some of my issues were NOT caused/affected by my emotions, and "not thinking about it" wouldn't do anything. Gaslighting and invalidation was probably half of my appointments with her. It absolutely can lead to people ignoring major issues (health and otherwise); glad your friend's loved one was okay!

[@normanreichwald6158]

I think healing from religious trauma like yours involves identifying and deconstructing a lot of the deep beliefs that were ingrained in you with painful consequences. Defining those beliefs, challenging them in the way you were not allowed to and reclaiming your freedom to think logically and question without threat of losing your Eternal salvation is crucial. But to me as a therapist, that is precisely what CBT is all about.

[@elizabethj4450]

Regarding self disclosure: so many of us struggle with mental health at least in part because we feel disconnected from other humans and from community in general. In this way therapy can sometimes make it worse if a therapist is being too clinical and cold.... it's like, if even my therapist cannot connect with me on a human level, who will?

[@kathrynturnbull990]

This is an excellent point! Really hits home. If everything feels disconnected and there's no connection, it doesn't feel like there's any point in doing therapy, or that it's worth it! I hope you feel more connection to others and to community than this post expresses. Connection can come from all sorts of places. It doesn't have to be a therapist.

[@elizabethj4450]

@kathrynturnbull990 thanks.... right now I have an AMAZING therapist and I'm doing well

[@sarahjaye4117]

Right??

[@bridgetsteed1842]

As both a therapist and a client, I agree 1,000% with everything you had to say! Thank you for breaking it down so perfectly!

[@invisiblekitty9542]

I had a therapist that did CBT. My trauma was specifically linked to being gaslit/manipulated and a really strong sense of trying to over achieve so I could be seen as 'valuable.' My experience with CBT was overall bad, every discussion was about what cognitive distortions I was having and not at all validating that the way I was feeling was okay with what I had been through. My therapist was also a little weird because when I told her about two situations in which two people I knew tried to date and in one scenario SA me, she tried to spin it into a "Well is that actually what their intention was" kind of thing and I ended up feeling like I was at fault for it. I stopped showing up to sessions, my family decided to stop paying for them, and I haven't gone to therapy since. I'm doing good now after working on myself but I feel like if I had a more effective type of therapy it would've helped me way better.

[@Starving_Phoenix]

I was insanely depressed in high school. To make matters worse, I was living with people who constantly made me feel like my sadness was inconvient to them. After it became clear I was getting into a territory where i might not make it to graduation, they started sending me to a cbt therapist. Being gaslit all day about how I had no valid reason to be depressed and pretending I wasn't was the best way to end up feeling better, going to therapy and being told some flavor of the same thing made me feel so much worse. I had no idea this modality had that effect in so many people.

[@clairbear1234]

Yes! I’m really sorry this happened to you. CBT is wild because they don’t want to hear your story but how can they know if CBT is a good fit for you if they don’t know your story.

[@Lauren_Fields]

I feel you on this. CBT doesn’t consider your environment and systemic issues as well.

[@skylinefever]

Before the internet had masses of people who were screwed by therapy, I thought I was alone for many years.

[@a-zadri]

I tried CBT a few years ago as a newly diagnosed autistic. I went in ready to give it an honest go and gave them a heads up before we started that I was autistic. What followed was perhaps the most monumental meltdown I have ever had. I went from reasonably chirpy to non verbal, nearly catatonic and unable to walk home as planned. Looking back and analysing, I think the therapist interpreted a lot of my autistic behaviours as avoidant ones, and got in the way of all of them. I've never had a meltdown so bad, and I still tried to give it another go (different, more senior person, same result) So to say that I'm not keen on CBT is an understatement.

[@leenbee17]

Gosh, I'm sorry you went through that. 😢

[@lynncrf]

What happened to cause the meltdown? Was she challenging?

[@pendafen7405]

Oh, that's so horrible and unfair for you to experience. Hopefully you're on the up now, or if not you've got a bit of support from somewhere else. You don't need people like that in your life triggering you in the worst ways. In case it helps to know, I empathise--am also a recently diagnosed autistic (female), and had my first session of yet-another national health funded CBT course last week (I've had them for depression a few times before), out of which I walked feeling so disconnected and confused, as well as low key agitated and insulted, and it's taken me until now to break out of the fugue and investigate why. Some chirpy middle-aged neurotypical bloke who had a bit of social anxiety in College and then took one diploma in social care is apparently qualified to tell me how to heal....by masking even more than I already do (he literally advised to 'pretend to be someone else in difficult situations') and avoiding/flight-moding even more than I already do. Despite asking my GP for a female therapist specialising in somatic therapy, I waited years and ended up with this useless knowledge-free clown. Just gonna go in next session and either troll him or tell him why his system sucks, then quit, I'm over this. If I need some stupid old guy telling me to buck up or fake it til I make it, I'll just phone my Dad for a lecture, then I don't even have to waste makeup or effort to leave my house.

[@sarahjaye4117]

I got kinda similar after a not good dbt lady :(

[@ryanburke1656]

I'm only 5 minutes in and I already want to say THANK YOU. The problem isn't that I need to correct thoughts until I see myself as having worth; I know I have worth - that's WHY I'm so fucked up over the fact that systemically, I'm LITERALLY, MATHEMATICALLY worthless, and don't have autonomous access to my resources. Being like, more positive isn't gonna change the fact that my barriers to resource security are 100% arbitrary AND outside of my control, but I'm expected to just bootstraps myself out of it anyways by having the right grindset? Fuck all, that's not helpful, and it tremendously misses the point.

[@magnoliaskogen]

This this this!!!!!!!!

[@xRiriRebel]

YES

[@alexandrac591]

grindset, omg so on-the-nose

[@skylinefever]

It is why I saw therapists as people saying the same old motivational bullshit. If going to the motivation camp didn't work, you didn't believe in yourself enough. If therapy did not work, you didn't trust the process enough. Just a bunch of blame shifting from snake oil salesmen.

[@iamsomanyppl666]

im having lunch while watching this video and im literally EATING AGRESSIVELY WHILE NODDING "YES YES YES" with my head THANK YOU FOR THIS

[@foxr1249]

6:30 is exactly why Compassion Focused Therapy clicks so much more for me than CBT. I'll be in a worry spiral, and from my CBT work I'll try to tell myself that this isn't logical or helpful, but it doesn't stop the worrying and now I just feel guilty about it

[@haileyoslund]

Yeah, as a therapist I think the most important aspect is to hold a nuanced perspective on these things! If a client tells me “my life is hard” I’m not going to be like “let’s think healthier!” I’m going to validate their difficulties. But if a client is like “I’m a piece of shit” and thinking that causes them to self sabotage then I’m gonna help them look into that. Is that really true? Who told you that? And through my rapport with them help them to reign in the extremes. I’m not into toxic positivity either. I like looking at the big picture, like you said, the and-vs-or thing. If we ignore the “bad” and only focus on the “good” then things will be skewed and same if we only focus on the “good”. I think people tend to be happier when we’re able to see things as they really are: “I’ve made mistakes/etc, but I’m not a mistake” or xyz. Also, we can’t CBT our clients out of inequality!!! I say it all the time!!

[@sarena666]

yeah, not gonna lie this video feels less like an explanation of CBT and moreso a criticism of poor therapeutic practice, i feel like its pretty obvious, granted i guess the toxic positivity movement has wreaked havoc on therapists lol. but i dont see how "you cant think yourself out of oppression" is an inherent factor of CBT like she says in the video. i think a lot of practitioners are prone to being blinded by their biases and ignoring the material conditions of their patients lives... nothing to do with their chosen modality. CBT obviously isnt going to work for everyone, but theres no chance itll work if you have a dumb enough therapist to tell you to think positively in response to marginalization...

[@haileyoslund]

@@sarena666 unfortunately there are many therapists who take CBT (or any modality for that matter) and run with it. It really isn’t always obvious, and grad school doesn’t always prepare therapists for this kind of nuanced thinking. Especially therapists who have not experienced their own deep struggles with mental health. There are plenty of well meaning clinicians who just don’t know what they don’t know. This is just my experience with being in school with future therapists and currently working with a variety of therapists. Just take a minute to scroll through and read the dozens of comments on this video and you will find many other stories. Some are “dumb” therapists, but many just don’t know the proper way to apply some of these modalities.

[@sarena666]

@@haileyoslund lol yeah i totally understand how cbt gets misused, and how that could lead to someone blaming cbt itself. i guess the nuances of cbt are a little more intuitive to me, since i integrated cbt strategies when i was 12 to deal what was thought to be depression/anxiety but was actually undiagnosed at the time adhd. so maybe its just overly obvious to me how cbt isnt the end all be all in mental healthcare but can be a massive help with the Cognitive aspects when forcing better thought patterns into habit. something about the fact most people going into the mental health field have had no personal mental health struggles is a little disturbing to me haha. i also cant overstate how much of an educational oversight it is to not teach basic critical thinking (questioning your own beliefs and thoughts) in most psychology programs, but that puts into context why so many mental health practitioners get offended at the prospect a patient might know something about mental health!

[@haileyoslund]

@@sarena666 yeah good points for sure. Psych is a very nuanced social science and that is hard for people to fully grasp. There are other medical or science based positions that aren’t as reliant on nuance and intuition (nursing, for example) You’re spot on tho. I have coworkers who get annoyed when clients come in and make guesses about what diagnosis they may have. I always welcome that type of thinking because it shows the person is invested in their treatment!

[@cosmickinks]

Word. I'm still in school to be a therapist (finish this summer!) and hated CBT for a good while bc of the experiences I saw ppl go through with it. Definitely felt invalidating. But now I'm actually doing my capstone project on CBFT bc I realized, while I don't use it exclusively, and definitely not when ppl need to process trauma, its interventions have actually been the most powerful for so many of my clients. Yes affirming and processing trauma is necessary, but then SO IS CHANGING THE MINDSET when ready. I'm sorry to say it, but a lot of ppl just wanna live in victim mentality forever and that's only okay for so long...

[@Lambda_Ovine]

CBT is used like, "this person can shut down their emotions and now produce acceptable surplus value for their employer as they distract themselves from their damaging material condition, they're cured."

[@amelian9677]

💯

[@ambriaashley3383]

I get that, but CBT is most effective for anxiety, depression, insomnia, sometimes chronic pain. When the environment cannot be changed, and is otherwise safe but our chemical brain reactions are causing us stress, teaching coping skills is highly effective. And in CBT you always acknowledge & validate emotions, & how they make the body feel

[@DeidresStuff]

That's literally all I want

[@darthszarych5588]

​@@ambriaashley3383it made my depression, anxiety, and insomnia worse because I felt really invalidated and I got into loops of trying to convince myself not to feel the horrible things I felt. It made it impossible to sleep.

[@termitreter6545]

@@darthszarych5588 Then what you did wasnt 'real' CBT. CBT validates emotoins, accept them, but also makes you question where they come from and allow you to change the underlying causes. If you to convince yourself to not feel bad emotoins... thats got nothing to do with CBT I feel.

[@nicolawainwright]

When I was a teenager with some pretty serious behavioral and growing substance abuse issues was sent to a CBT “specialist” who literally had me fill out worksheets for hours each week. Worksheets in her office, homework worksheets and worksheets to keep on hand in case I ever felt the urge to complete them to share with her. It was not only frustrating, but terrifying. I was quite literally begging for help. My life was out of control. I didn’t know how to stop making the decisions I kept making and she wanted me to fill out a damn chart. It took YEARS before I would seek help again, unfortunately it took the loss of most everything in my life due to my addiction issues.

[@uniquechannelnames]

Damn now that is a lazy therapist goddamn

[@jaebreslin2851]

I feel like CBT put me in a headspace where I couldn't trust myself, and therefore I ignored red flags because I thought I was being irrational and I wound up in another unsafe relationship. (This was 7 and a half years ago I'm okay now :) )

[@judyditmer2589]

This made my day. My CPRN who prescribed meds talked me in to seeing a therapist at the place she practices. This therapist was HEAVILY into CBT (I suspect she doesn’t know how to do anything else), and started in immediately on how we were going to do this-I was not told ahead of time that that was what she would be doing. I asked a number of questions (which she didn’t really seem to like), and I was instantly skeptical. When she started talking about worksheets & “homework” and all the other stuff, I told her my life was in chaos and there was no way that was going to be possible. She acted like that was fine, but continued to push the idea through the few months I saw her. I was in the middle of a lot of significant medical problems, among them testing which led to a diagnosis of heart failure and Afib; this after being misdiagnosed with asthma (the definitive test for asthma, which had never been offered, showed I never had asthma at all). I’d been “treated” with all kinds of inhalers that did not work for 8+ years, and when I complained (to three different practitioners) that the inhalers didn’t help and that my shortness of breath was getting worse, I was told “that’s just how it is with asthma.” One day, I started talking about this medical gaslighting and mis/maltreatment (I had told her about it-this was maybe the third or fourth time I talked about it), and she started criticizing me for bringing it up again, and then yelled (literally) at me, “You need to stop thinking about that!” I was stunned. I went home and sent a message that I was not going to see her again. I still can’t believe she did that. Those docs cost me years of my life suffering needlessly without proper treatment, as my heart deteriorated, and the solution to this trauma was for me to “stop thinking about” it. One of the questions I had asked her in the beginning was “How is this (CBT) different from when people tell me to “just cheer up” or “don’t think about it” (meaning whatever is troubling me). When she got mad at me bringing it up again (as I was still very unwell and learning how to deal with the damaged heart, many new medicines, and the grief associated with it all) and yelled at me for it, I saw that at the core, CBT (or at least the way SHE practiced it) WASN’T any different from those platitudes I often hear from people who simply don’t have the problems in the first place. Since then I’ve read and learned more about it, and one thing I figured out very quickly is that insurance companies LOVE it, and it’s ALL about saving money, because of the limit on the number of sessions. “Evidence-based,” my ass. It’s just a way for the system to be able to say “There, fixed that! No more therapy for YOU!” I can see, maybe, it might work on something like a fear of spiders or airplanes, but for complicated, very long-term problems related to trauma and abuse, I just don’t see it. An “worksheets/homework” is just cringey. Thank you so much for this video. It confirms a lot about this subject for me.

[@skylinefever]

Whatever evidence CBT has, it is about as good as a crooked cop planting evidence at a crime scene.

[@binglemarie42]

What I thought was CBT drove me deeper and deeper into depression and C-PTSD fueled existential crisis. Now I know that my providers weren't using CBT well, but even actual CBT still gives me the heebie jeebies!

[@endTHEhegemony_Today]

I can't tell you how much I resonate with this!! 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Hope your day gets more awesome as it goes on! 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤! Much Love!!

[@KatPadmore]

11:30- I cant explain how much I wanted to "win" therapy as a kid. it was so damaging to get into a session and sit for an hour thinking how much I had failed at implementing new techniques and overcoming barriers because my mental illness was -gasp- disabling, especially when part of my trauma comes out in the desperate need for perfection. EDIT: honestly this entire video is so validating as someone who spent their entire childhood in various forms of therapy, most of which were based in CBT models. I get that it's evidence based, but fuck me did it make me feel like a failure for being a kid/teen with severe mental health issues

[@michah321]

I am so relieved to hear another therapist denounce cbt. Ive been hating it for years and they just push it so hard.

[@TherealHRHMarissa]

Yes. Watching this made me realize that all of my ridiculously terrible therapy experiences were because of this. The conversations I had with my therapists made no sense to me and seemed 1000% dismissive. It all makes sense now!

[@meropale]

I have searched out therapists to do CBT but the sessions just end up being venting sessions. Maybe CBT isn't the problem, it's just that people aren't trained to do it right.

[@michah321]

@@meropale it seems like the deal with cbt is getting people to rationalize away their feelings. That being said, a problem solving approach I think is a positive thing. A therapist that helps you problem solve about the things in your life that are difficult. That seems like the most useful therapy

[@EchoFreckle123]

CBT made me feel crazy for thinking the very normal thoughts I had given what happened to me in my life. I’ve gotten other therapy since and it’s made a huge difference, but never again for CBT.

[@danika9411]

Yeah, same for me. I was living in a childrenshome after I was generally ab*sed. My environment in the childrenshome was NOT safe, there was violence, bullying, stealing, many did hard drugs. But instead of validating me and supporting me to maybe change the group, get myself to safer surroundings I was made to believe that I'm anxious, because my mindset is wrong. I need to change how I think.... That doesn't make bullying any better. All it taught me is to not take myself out of ab*sive situations and thinking something is wrong with me. I stayed in a violent relationship too long and in a quiet bad job situation. Because I had been taught that I'm the problem. I'm trying to undo this now.

[@Louiseonajourney]

I'm so happy that I'm not alone! I've done CBT and I always felt like I can understand it logically but I can't change my emotions, so I'm basically failing therapy. To feel like you're failing therapy when you're already depressed isn't a good thing... I've been told by practioners how great it is, and that it's so successful, so when it didn't help me I got the feeling that they thought I wasn't trying or I didn't want to improve, I just wanted to feel sorry for myself. This was so validating to hear, and the comments make me feel like it's not me; it just isn't the miracle cure that we've been told it is

[@dliap98]

the DBT tools that addressed how my body felt when having a meltdown were immensely helpful to me, and were the sole tools that I was able to use to pull me out of the overwhelming meltdowns I was having when my borderline was at its worst. the number one thing that prevented me from hurting myself on several occasions was dunking my head in cold water, or putting a really cold cloth on my face so I could stop hyperventilating long enough to be able to physically calm myself down. there is no point trying to logic and reason your way out of a meltdown. as my therapist described it, I was so upset that my rational brain had switched off and my monkey brain was in control. she called it 'flipping my lid' which feels very accurate. no amount if talking it through or 'challenging my thought patterns'was going to be productive because that part of my brain had switched off and I had gone into panic survival mode. the goal was to calm down enough to where I actually felt safe and my rational brain would be functional again. you can only address the core issues and talk things through when you don't feel physically unsafe or unwell because you're so upset. DBT focused so much more on things that almost seemed overly simplistic and silly at first, but in the end they were the only things that actually have helped me in the long run. I went through my first DBT group course almost 3 years ago now and the difference in how I respond to things is night and day. I owe my quality of life to DBT and my own hard work

[@thalmorbiznitch4028]

I feel the same about DBT, that’s what my therapy was. It felt overly simplistic at first but in the long run it felt more like “okay let’s accept you are going to probably feel like this at various times in your life, so let’s find ways to make it not life-ending and instead how to work through them so they aren’t disrupting your life and functioning as much”

[@dliap98]

@@thalmorbiznitch4028 yes exactly! that's a great way to put it

[@emilybixler3166]

I think this is a good example of why therapists should consider a client's individual needs and situation before applying a modality. I am in many ways the opposite of you: I have always struggled to feel emotions and everything is wrapped with several layers of logic. The acts I did in my desperation with total lack of feeling. So, being told to, say, dip my head in ice water to make the strong feelings go away did absolutely nothing (if I'm being generous) because I felt very little to begin with. It didn't matter how much I cleared my head, and it didn't matter how much logic I applied: DBT was never going to help my depression. I think the issue is, DBT is being seen as a default more and more often, including in cases like mine where it does more harm than good. Extreme acts don't always equate to extreme feelings.

[@anainesgonzalez8868]

This is exactly my experience. I am also borderline and DBT was extremely helpful

[@dliap98]

@@emilybixler3166 that's a really good point, thank you for sharing that. I've experienced depressed moods within borderline, but I've never experienced a depressive episode due to a depressive disorder so I don't really know what it's like. but from what i've heard i imagine that DBT skills would be much less likely to help in that case since it seems almost completely opposite in terms of feeling things on 100% vs feeling numb. with borderline if i was having a meltdown my emotions were way up high in intensity, so something to help snap me out of that feeling of complete lack of control was needed. but if i was having a period of numbness (which is common with bpd, but for me only ever lasted a few minutes to a day at a time) i don't think it would have done much. thanks for sharing your experience, you're absolutely right that it's so important to tailor therapy to the patient because our brains and experiences are so different that what helps one person could hurt another

[@GRUFFBONES]

i went from feeling desperate for help to ghosting my cbt therapist because of how much of a "chore" it began to feel like, and already being in a vulnerable place made it very difficult to do the classroom-esque work which led to a bunch of guilt.. it definitely wasn't helpful for me at all so I'm glad you've touched on this topic

[@GRUFFBONES]

the cbt therapist also didn't feel like an actual person i was speaking to and more so a robot of "what can we do to... not feel that?" as if i had any useful tools to make that possible for myself- cbt feels like the neurotypical "self care" of the mental health world

[@hebedite4865]

OMG yes i literally just yelled YES so loud at your first point because like for me , CBT just felt like being gaslit and made me fall deeper into "negative thinking" and especially with like.... the general state of the world right now... and for the past nearly 10 years coming into adulthood, I always felt like being told to just stay positive kind of just makes you not tell anyone how much you're actually struggling because you just keep being shot down and told to stay positive..... especially as someone with Autism that heavily skews towards the PDA type of symptoms...

[@lemsip207]

It had the same effect on me, too. I thought it was just me. I am being pushed towards support and therapy, and this video will equip me to say "BS" to those who try to use it on me. Jordan Peterson tells his readers to clean their room before trying to change the world. I don't have much respect for him, but I can see where he is coming from on this. Sometimes, an organisation needs to get its house in order before it can effectively campaign. It's no good holding meetings that a few people dominate, through talking too often and for too long, and that most people don't get a say in. So the meeting gets talked out because of waffle, repetitions and goung off on a tangent, and the business not concluded or it goes on for hours. Councils need to prioritise street cleaning, maintenance of its properties and the highways and repairs over redevelopment and vanity projects.

[@alexritchie4586]

I've always seen enforced or false positivity as extremely sinister and dangerous. As David Mitchell said 'A cheesy grin slapped on the face of someone clearly having an awful time is the mark of a liar or a moron.'

[@lemsip207]

@@alexritchie4586 I was talking to one of my neighbours in the block of flats who is infected with toxic positivity and thinks because she has had no trouble here it's a safe area. Then I told her I was targeted and had men trying to break into my flat or threatening to unless I visited them most nights or let them in to visit. Those incidents went back to the mid 90s. These stalkers see a young or youngish woman move into a flat by herself in the social housing sector and unless she is armed with a gun or is a black belt in karate she will be targeted. They will attempt to visit her and worse. It often leads to her having to use her home to store illegal drugs, being sexually assaulted or having her home being used as a party flat. Of course if you are infected with toxic positivity and haven't had any trouble you think people telling you about these things are either liars or they invited the trouble themselves by being 'too friendly'. I was actually cold towards my stalker at first. He butted into a conversation I was having with a man I was on friendly terms with, though not close to, and overheard me telling that man which street I lived in. The stalker then invited himself to my home. I said nothing and ignored him. To the stalker the absence of a 'no' meant a 'yes'. The stalker then followed me home to see which building I lived in and stared up at it to see which flat I lived in. He turned up a few times to knock on my door but I didn't answer afraid that if I shouted at him to go away he would break in and enter. One afternoon he walked into my flat as I hadn't shut the front door tight. I screamed at him to get out and told him if I ever saw him in the building again I would call the police. A door entry system was fitted a year later which kept him out. So he befiriended an old lady in the block of flats to gain entry into it. Fortunately the old lady didnt know how her intercom system worked so couldnt let him in. Another neighbour who lived on the ground floor and who watched out of his living room window a lot told me that he was often standing there staring at my flat while I was out and when I was in. I have seen young women move in and their flats soon used as party flats either while they were away for the weekend or while at home all because they trusted someone with a spare key. It's rather suspicious when you see a crowd of people turn up at 11.30 for a noisy party now and then. I should have reported it but instead confronted her directly. Go and ask the ward councillors what they know about what is going on. One former councillor stopped delivering leaflets in the street after she or her deliverers had bad experiences delivering here. I thought she was being prejudiced at the time but found out later what was going on.

[@annak1042]

I've had so many clinicians dismiss me when I've tried to explain that CBT doesn't work for me. Insist that I'm doing it wrong, and I just need to try it again, but work harder & be better this time. One used the phrase "CBT will work as long as you're willing enough to change". Thank you for validating that it *wasn't* my fault, and that there's other options.

[@skylinefever]

If someone says they have a one size fits all solution, they are a liar.

[@dearhumanityihaveaquestion]

THANK YOU!! You nailed it. I have been saying this for so.many. YEARS!! "Cognitive Gaslighting" is what it should be called. Despised therapy my whole life because of CBT. You have to validate trauma/feelings, work through "the feels" step by step, come to acceptance / realization organically though that process, and THEN find ways you want your life to look like, and what actions help best support those needs/wants. Becoming a nurse, doing a rotation in level 1 psych holding, reading "The Deepest Well" by Nadine Burke, was so validating for my own feelings/trauma and now my patients. CBT cannot be the starting point in CPTSD. I want to add, my experiences with therapy since COVID have been WAY better. The newer generations of therapist appear to be far more open-minded and intuitive on the way they run sessions.

[@elizabethj4450]

Me: i think about death constantly Cbt: oh haha you shouldn't do that, that's not healthy Me: .... Cbt: that's $175 (Thanks so much for this mickey]

[@calliope6623]

Ugh it's like the classic "ok everybody, on the count of three, don't think about bananas!"

[@saltiestsiren]

"List some reasons life is good!" (But what about the reasons life is...bad...) "Oh, uhhh...ignore those!! Like how privileged members of society ignore the plights of the less fortunate!" Man...CBT isn't ALL bad but boy has it done some harm...

[@catpoke9557]

I think it works for some people. I did it to myself before I even found out about CBT. Like, with this EXACT example. I decided that thinking about it wasn't going to stop it from happening, so there's no point in thinking about it. So I stopped. I feel a lot better.

[@umbelinaregoleite1535]

@@calliope6623That’s NOT CBT 😅

[@LalTheBard]

Thank you for this video. I’ve tried CBT and I felt it was undoing all the progress I’d done with my previous therapist… luckily now I found a new one who uses an integrative approach and my healing journey is back on the right track. When you’ve been gaslighted for most of your life, hearing a therapist basically say that “it’s all in your head” is the most damaging thing ever.

[@KristofskiKabuki]

Everything I've heard/read about CBT seems to assume that if you know a thought/feeling is untrue or irrational then you won't be affected by it anymore, which isn't my experience at all. Also the model that our feelings are caused by our thoughts seems weird to me, I feel it's much more common that I have a feeling and that creates a thought, so investigating my thoughts and why I'm having them feels a lot more useful than just saying that they're not real

[@spaghettimac63]

I completely agree. Often times I feel the emotion first and the emotion triggers a thought. The emotion is usual felt within my body/ is physical. Ex, tightness in chest, heat in my chest, my body feeling heavy. I usually get stuck in the emotion and thought with no release from my actions. It also makes me think of how people feel/ experience shame. Shame is usually felt first, then action, then thought. After feeling shame and which ever emotion after it, the action that follows is usually a knee jerk. It happens so fast that you can’t even think in the moment/ it’s an automatic response.

[@KristofskiKabuki]

@@spaghettimac63 yes, exactly! And sometimes I misinterprate physical feelings as emotions and create thoughts around them, it's very common for me to feel like I'm pissed off about something then when I stop and feel into it realise I'm actually just feeling really run down but my brain latched onto a narrative for why I felt bad

[@linsling]

this! our brains try to make sense of the world. sometimes i'll feel a negative emotion because of a purely physiological reason-- like the cocktail of hormones during PMS-- and then my brain will SUPPLY thoughts to rationalize it. when i'm startled by a sudden loud noise and it triggers a panic attack-- that's purely my sympathetic nervous system at work. i can't talk myself out of it, because it literally happens before my brain can even PHYSICALLY register it. now, what i CAN do is learn/practice skills that help me calm my BODY down and help me feel safer. the ones that work best for me are physical: slowing my breathing, stretching, stimming, etc....

[@vancesummers422]

As someone who is in grad school with the intention of earning my license, I am SO GLAD to find someone who thinks similarly to me on this one. I always thought CBT seemed very surface-level and often invalidating. Telling someone to simply change their thought patterns may work in a handful of situations, but by and large, you cannot think your way out of trauma and bad situations and discrimination, for example. It ignores the root of the issue.

[@mglassco4]

I really appreciate how real and raw you are. You have such a refreshing down to earth style and It’s obvious you deeply care as well as want the best for not only for your clients also for the “system” world of psycho-therapy.

[@MiaShmia]

You hit the nail on the head with so many things. My therapist was so nice but it did feel like, every time I said something or opened up a bit it was like ‘ok, thankyou for telling me that (etc) now back to the worksheet…” which I guess is what CBT is. And the capitalism of it being the bare minimum one offered.. you put it so well. I hope I can find therapy that works for me soon.

[@elapid_skeptic]

12:19 Mickey: I prefer a more guidance style, the way I describe this to my clients is that you’re the driver and I’m in the passenger seat of the car to guide you… Me processing Mickey’s explanation: “It’s dangerous to go alone. Take me as your special GPS MickeyMaps!”

[@davishropshire5361]

Exactly. That promotes client self-determination. This is their journey, and they know and understand themselves better than I do.

[@xletragedyx]

I've had lots of therapists, but only one like this. I really miss her :(

[@Starving_Phoenix]

I also really need mental health professionals to understand that their clients do know themselves best. I told tons of therapists and psychiatrists that cbt wasn't a modality that worked for me only to be told I just needed to practice more. It's fine to say you're not a good fit for me if cbt isn't a method I want to utilize. The years of being told it was my fault therapy wasn't working made me think maybe therapy just wasn't for me, which is a shit place to be when you have chronic, treatment resistant depression. "Get therapy" is only helpful if you add "it takes time to find someone who works well with you and bad therapists are definitely a thing so keep trying".

[@kelliann]

I had a traumatic event happen in the middle me attending CBT. I was on about week 4 and seeing improvement for anxiety at work. Unfortunately I was carjacked at gunpoint, it was terrifying and physical. When I went in to my next session, my therapist was flummoxed on how to help me. It was unexpected for him to have a client have gradual improvement and then suddenly spiral down. We tried to continue with the CBT, but he was not able to understand the physical response I was having to the incident. No amount of thinking during that time helped my nervous system calm down, and he didn't know any other modalities and didn't have any colleagues in other specialties to recommend. I genuinely don't think I could see another therapist who is in their first couple years of practice - it was disempowering to get to a point where my therapist didn't have extra knowledge to help me, and he was too new to have a large network of colleagues to reach out to to find me support. I appreciate that therapists need to work with patients to build experience, but it's terrifying being a professionals "first" in a traumatic area. I genuinely think I was his first client with severe trauma.

[@emmainlace]

Just to thrown my hat in the ring, I suffered from OCD and CPTSD since I was a child and was in “traditional talk therapy” for 13 years. I tried somatic healing, self compassion based work, etc. and I found that those approaches my rumination so much worse. I talked about my trauma constantly and it made me feel disempowered. CBT literally changed my life and helped me feel empowered to make choices to my life and thinking. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Crying about my trauma constantly literally kept me stuck for YEARS and I wish I discovered CBT a decade ago.

[@bigandlittle]

❤ Yeah, the comments here are shocking. Blaming CBT instead of the therapist seems to be the predominant factor. I'm hearing horrible stories about terrible sounding therapists. I don't think it has anything to do with CBT. What a shame.

[@uniquelyautisticlyemma1789]

Thank you. As a fellow person with OCD, I love CBT too. I first did it with an anxiety therapist earlier this year before I got diagnosed with OCD, and I greatly benefited from it. I loved hearing about different cognitive disortions. Learning about black and white thinking, and how I don’t have to engage in it, was very helpful for me. (In other words, I didn’t have to hate this famous historical figure that I’m a fan of, just because they did some bad things, which is the impression I got from other people). I’ve also done CBT with my current therapist, my OCD therapist. But as I’ve heard other people mention, not all CBT therapists are made equal. I think my therapist is a good therapist is because she utilizes, what I call, “cognitive distortion based CBT” , but it’s not the only tool in her box, she uses other things too, ERP (another type of CBT, and others). When I talk about stressful experiences I’ve gone through, and the way that I feel about them, she always validates my feelings. In those situations she never makes me feel like I have to feel a certain way about something. She was actually the one who taught me that I’m allowed to feel what I feel, and I don’t have to feel a certain way in certain situations. And when she does use cognitive distortion based CBT, it’s not for complex trauma, but for thoughts that are about how “This person didn’t love the comment I posted on their instagram post, I must have said something bad in the comment. The person who posted the post must be upset at me (when I don’t know that the things I mentioned are true).

[@Racheleah2015]

My therapist self disclosing has been some of the most helpful/impactful part of my ptsd recovery

[@kezia8027]

"first of all I'm both thank you" YASSSSS Mickey, you are a queen and I love you for it, you have helped so much with my own self acceptance of my body, my mental health, relationships, you name it, your channel has been probably THE most helpful youtube channel I've subscribed to. Thank you for all that you do, words will never encompass how much what you do means to people.

[@MyBeautifulHealth]

Why not quote the full statement?

[@norafeher8260]

Thank you so much for addressing this, Mickey. It feels so validating to hear my exact thoughts being said by a lisenced clinician. I went to a CBT therapist for complex PTSD and she did all the things you listed, the gaslighting, the telling me societal issues don't exist ("I don't like the term sexism" were her exact words), the goddamn worksheets and the teensy timeframe of wanting to "heal" me in 10 sessions. For good measure, she added in a good dose of victim blaming and slut shaming (for having been assaulted). It feels liberating to hear that I don't have to squeeze all the anger from all the injustice perpetrated against me for decades into a breathe and count back from 10 and then decide to stop being angry exercise.

[@av9049-e7l]

Holy c'''. I'm so, so sorry that you had to go through this. I'm outright appaled by the: "I don't like the term sexism". Tbh, sounds exactly like the therapists around where I live. So smiley-smiley-supportive but full of bs when it comes to real life trauma and recognising structural power disbalances in the society which affect ppl. Downright unhelpful and useless when it comes to tackling issues relating to social inequality, really, and lining against feminism in my experience, and it shows. As a result, I got super suspicious of my therapists' beliefs, I googled hard before making any appointment, including traces of any political beliefs bc I didn't want to be gaslit out of mine again.

[@cattmartyr8156]

Self-disclosure was paramount to to building trust with my therapist. He disclosed that he was also a recovering addict. Until then, I believed that he couldn’t possibly understand what I was experiencing. It really is an invaluable tool.

[@Catsmeowmeow234]

That you, CBT felt like I was just being gaslit by my therapist the whole time instead of actually finding healthy ways to unpack and cope with my trauma.

[@morganqorishchi8181]

You summed it up pretty well: CBT taught me my coping mechanisms were bad and not to do it, that I was bad, that my thoughts were bad and my reactions were bad, but it didn't give me anything to replace it with. So during treatment I felt worse than I ever had before. All I learned from it was not to feel my feelings or think about my feelings. If I realize I'm anxious or want to die, I ignore it now, because CBT made me realize it doesn't matter - it made me realize **I** don't matter.

[@YujiUedaFan]

CBT literally tells you to talk about your feelings, only to stab you in the back later and say you should keep it all bottled up.

[@AuthorDiannaGunn]

I did a course of CBT a few years ago. It was helpful for the specific trauma I was working through - involuntarily being hospitalized by my mother - because she did actually want what was best for me & to help me, she just didn't know how & had no idea how traumatic the hospital would be for me. So reframing my thoughts helped a lot. But I could easily see how it would be a harmful approach for other traumas I have & especially trauma caused by systemic oppression. I'm in a DBT program now & it's SO much more helpful for my broader struggles.

[@dliap98]

100% agree. I went through DBT and it really changed my whole life and the way I respond to things for the better

[@goober479]

DBT has changed my life. I can't believe how well it works for so many things... and it's only been 6 months for me.

[@anainesgonzalez8868]

@@goober479 I did less than a year of a group program and it changed my life. Do not get me wrong, I still have issues and the change was not linear at all but I am in a completely different place. My life before DBT doesn’t feel real almost

[@AuthorDiannaGunn]

@@anainesgonzalez8868Yeah, I've been in a three month group program & the skills definitely help - and I've also gotten words to describe some skills I was already using. I'm also in one-on-one therapy with a DBT therapist & they've been great to work with. My only wish is that the group program was a few weeks longer - I feel like there's still a lot to learn! (But that's what you get when you're seeking government-sponsored therapy)

[@wingsofzero5732]

I'm so lucky that my therapist was able to understand when and when not to suggest CBT for me; I felt ok with being told to use CBT for my driving phobia, because it's a phobia that I can tackle. But for other stuff like my CPTSD, CBT never entered the conversation. He makes me feel listened and seen and I appreciate it so much.

[@lindseybujac6180]

I was offered counselling after experiencing my first mental health difficulties following the birth of my son. I'd been through an extreme, and frightening period of psychosis, at a really vulnerable time in my life, and my baby's life. I can still remember the therapist drawing a diagram about thoughts and actions for me, and explaining what was trying to be achieved. I was asked about my thought patterns . . . I had none!! My mind was a blank. I hadn't experienced psychosis because I'd got unhelpful thought patterns, I'd just had an awful chemical upheaval. I was so shocked that the therapist wasn't interested in how I felt about the life changing period I'd just been through, but only about thoughts I was having (which, in reality, I just wasn't having). I'm not sure I went back to my next session, I definitely didn't bother with the third. I still feel let down, and that was more than twenty years ago. Luckily, good friends to talk with, and educational sessions with other people with lived experience have given me so much of what I needed - but I've never gone seeking therapy ever again. Maybe one day I will, maybe, maybe not. Thanks for the video - it explained my reaction to CBT perfectly.

[@SydneyLarrikin-ci2vz]

I had a therapist with a PhD in treating PTSD. He was able to tell me the therapists i had had before were abusive, gaslighting, incompetent, etc, which really is true. But then.... He used CBT to help me stay in extremely dangerous abusive conditions. Actual quote : "its been six months and you havent gotten any better. I dont understand why, most people would be better by now." I thought it was my fault because the cbt didnt work

[@IsidorTheNordicGuy]

THIS! It has been 6 months for me and I experience way more difficulties moving about in public than before. The extreme stress comes out of nowhere despite me trying to actively think everything’s fine. Keep exposing myself to these situations as it is recommended to keep doing that but yet it feels more and more difficult and extremely stressful each time. He can’t say I’m thinking in the wrong way as I am not, the response is there either way.

[@mfox4189]

I've been extremely fortunate and had a wonderful experience with my therapist who uses CBT and DBT in a blended approach. When she hears me expressing thought fallacies, she points them out and we work together to identify the kinds of unhelpful thought styles I might be engaging in. She helps me come up with new narratives to break those cycles by having me acknowledge logical mindsets, but then have a wise mind set that acknowledged the meeting place between logic and feeling. Her methods seem to always be focused on self-compassion and self-advocacy. Even when we addressed my trauma, it was from a point of acceptance and acknowledgment of the pain that I experienced. Logically understanding when I am engaging in unhelpful thought processes in order to break those cycles, but then ways to utilize my support system more and ways to advocate for myself, passively and actively. I find it tragic that so many people have had such bad experiences with therapists implementing CBT when I have had such a good connection and good experiences with my therapist and how she implements it.

[@LottieDeLuscious]

DBT literally saved my life though and I no longer meet enough diagnostic criteria for BPD, just wanted to throw this out there.

[@ItBeThatWaySometimes]

DBT made my trauma and eating disorder so much worse.

[@EnchantingWings1]

​@@ItBeThatWaySometimes me too. Unless it's intertwined with Prolonged Exposure protocol (DBT-PE), it isn't trauma focused. I felt punished for having a trauma reaction when trauma was at it's worst. Only non-CBT type trauma therapy brought down my reactions... To a point where I now feel comfortable enough with intimacy. A few months after I finished DBT work with a therapist, I met one of my closest friends and we went to a group get together at university. As soon as a certain type of conversation started, I had to get the heck out as it was a major trigger. I was like that until I started EMDR in 2022. Can now have those conversations without wanting to jump out of my skin. And this was after 3 years of EMDR. DBT dealt with surface level wanting to harm myself thoughts, but the core problem remained.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@ItBeThatWaySometimes I don't doubt that. Every form of therapy has clients that definitely shouldn't use that method. Any good one will also have people for which it's a great technique. A good clinician should be able to figure out whether the technique is appropriate or not without ruining anybody's life.

[@hellaSwankkyToo]

​@@ItBeThatWaySometimes your response to someone sharing how something saved their life is to trauma dump all over it? how kind of you. /s

[@Inuyashagirl2015]

​@@hellaSwankkyTooresponding to someone promoting a type of therapy that was helpful to them by stating it CAN make things worse for people if it's not the right kind of therapy *for them* is not trauma dumping. You don't understand what trauma dumping is. You're also being a jerk over nothing. Why? The comment you're responding to wasn't even heated or saying DBT doesn't work ever, just that there's at least two possible sides to it. Why HERE OF ALL PLACES would you think that your comment is appropriate or *kind,* as you stress it's so important to be in a KZbin comment? Every time you point a finger at someone, three fingers point back at you. They aren't being *unkind* by saying it had a negative affect on them, YOU are in your sardonic, inappropriately angry Redditor response. You need to turn off the internet for a while. That's not the way you talk to real people.

[@looli1327]

Holy shit. As someone with c-ptsd, this is EXACTLY what my experience has been like with CBT. It's absolutely a mindfuck.

[@Bellatrix76]

I also have c-ptsd, and CBT was a nightmare.😑

[@trish87563]

My experience with CBT was that it was just as invalidating as my abusive parents were, as it echoed what they'd said for years to justify their behavior: *my* thoughts were the problem (not anyone else's behavior), and if I just changed "my* thoughts, all would be well. What really helped me was a therapist who worked from a mix of EFT, psychodynamic, interpersonal biology, EMDR, and IFS and made it known that my thoughts were totally valid for the abuse and neglect I'd been through and that he wasn't in any hurry to kick me out the door.

[@mariskavanbeek5019]

Thank you for this video. I have had my fair share of bad experiences with therapy and CBT and this is so validating, especially to hear it from a therapist. I'm still on my journey to finding the right therapist so I can finally start healing and every time I mention to a therapist that I don't want to do CBT, they question it and invalidate my experience. It feels like everyone is trying to push CBT on me. But this video has given me more confidence that I'm right to decline CBT and if a therapist has a problem with that, I'll continue my search.

[@ApparentlyApril]

Thank you SO much for this! As someone with cptsd who intellectualizes so much, CBT was my downfall. At first I thought wow, I understand everything, I‘m so good at therapy?? until it got to a point where I thought I‘m far beyond any help. I knew everything but didn’t physically process anything so nothing changed. I just became extremely hyper aware of everything "wrong with me" and it led to a very dangerous feeling of hopelessness. It was so frustrating feeling like just going in circles for years and years on end. I am now doing a combination of EMDR and somatic experiencing and although it feels like CBT just pushed all my unprocessed trauma down deeper, I finally feel like there might be room to change. This is an important conversation! Thank you!

[@zuglymonster]

13:48 sorry to comment twice but you just hit exactly what happened to me with my case manager and although it's not a therapist her behavior drove me away from the profession. I told her about finding out that my boyfriend had been murdered, he'd passed away 6 months ago from an OD so she had known what was going on. After I told her that I'd found out someone had been arrested she let me go through ALL THAT and then told me it would be our last appointment together because I wasn't progressing and she was getting promoted and had to drop some clients. I don't think I've ever felt more betrayed in my life. I was PISSED for a long time, just that she'd let me go though that and then tell me after because it was rude but no it hurt. It became stunningly obvious she didn't give a SHIT about me the entire time. Why would she? It's just her job.

[@samanthal2427]

I hated CBT, as a survivor of all three of the major abuses, being told "just don't think of it that way!" was extremely frustrating. I didn't think of it that way for decades, to survive, now my brain is haywire because I hid from it all for so long....why would I do what I did when I was being abused? Then being told "no, I don't think that's true, you just FEEL that way" about things like saying I can no longer communicate with family due to their terrible past abuses, oooouf. I'm glad I'm old and experienced enough to realize it was just bad therapy and that I wasn't completely crazy and helpless as I was being told.

[@Anon06428]

I recently cut out my family for past abuses also, and it’s crazy how my family is trying to use therapy tactics to gaslight me into believing I’m not making the right choice.

[@samanthal2427]

@@Anon06428 Yes, they will absolutely use it as a tool against you to create the crazy making feelings and to try and sound like the "normal" ones. Go with your gut and stay strong, best wishes to you on your healing!

[@redleeks6253]

I'll tell you the truth about the majority of therapists. They don't care. You are the crazy unbalanced one and you're the one sitting at the office. They don't care about your trauma, your pain, your well-being they just want you to pretend you are functional and if you appear functional now that's good. Thats how chester from linkin park ended up erasing himself. At an interview he was sayinh he was in bad company when he was with his thoughts and the interviewer was like ' whaaaat??thats crazy maaan.nooo'. Even therapists who are paid to 'help you' are like 'you're depressed because you want' "try to see things in another way'.

[@Emile-philia]

I'm so glad to hear you criticise CBT after BH (in my order of watching). You're on a good streak! The modality of CBT in my opinion is the encapsulation of individualistic values, which may be the order of the day in society but they are deeply problematic and unsustainable. I think we should not always strive to overcome ourselves but sometimes in fact our circumstances, not only contributing to a healthier culture but also managing our extrinsic circumstances like breaking up with toxic friends/partners/families and so on. It feels like the whole agenda of CBT is to sit you down and basically teach you to endure passively all the devastation that you might be subjected to. I don't see the long-term in that. And not least of it, figuring out ways to cope with our minds often will not empty our deep reservoirs of injustice, invalidation, invisibility, insecurity and taboo feelings/thoughts. We really need to be complete human beings in our lives in order to thrive and not tuck ourselves in just to attain "functioning".

[@GrowWildOutdoors]

CBT & DBT, combined with EMDR saved my life. 4 years ago I was suicidal, deeply in the throes of PTSD & had so much fear-based thinking I couldn't function.

[@Raddiebaddie]

CBT helped me to get started and gave me some tools to see how I was limiting myself with thinking but then it got to a plateau where I just felt like I was “failing” because I still faced certain external oppressions that were never going to go away and it hurt. It can be helpful for some people or situations but it doesn’t solve everything and there is never a one sized fits all, blanket approach that is “the way” to do therapy

[@reblewi30]

I am one of those people that actually benefited greatly from CBT. I have OCD and before I was treated for it, my OCD completely debilitated me and I was placed in the psych ward on suicide watch. I went into treatment and received exposure and response prevention therapy (which is a type of CBT) and it saved my life. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked (mentally) and I am certain that I would not have survived without it. I also went to a CBT therapist for about two years from 2019-2021 and that particular therapy was not helpful and I hated her methods. So I have very mixed feelings about CBT.

[@aderyn7600]

1000% the ERP side of CBT genuinly saved my life. Had to do an 11 week intensive program to get over my severe OCD but i did it. I also hated CBT when I first started it because I didn’t realize that it wasn’t gaslighting me or telling me my brain was silly, it was giving me tools to be able to handle situations I couldn’t change AS WELL AS helping me have coping mechanisms available when I was going through other therapy. A lot of therapists can fuck up the CBT model, but ultimately CBT is a tool giving based model, it is incredibly helpful in the first part of someone’s journey of therapy because it gives you tangible tools!

[@witchassbitch3]

CBT seems to be great for certain types of anxiety specifically OCD or rumination. I wish the overall mentality was that cbt works for those things and not everything, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case.

[@franmari]

i think ERP is truly life saving for certain obsessive patterns, i was an obsessive anorexic and treatment resistant, erp helped me push back against obsessive thoughts that were so extreme i’d be unable to swallow food out of disgust, erp and somatic therapy made me physically able to eat and begin physically recovering, i think some eating disorders and ocd can be very similar, cheers to our successes :)

[@rachelann9362]

As someone who was undiagnosed as an Autistic ADHDer until I was 38 and having been in therapy on and off for most of my life, I have not found CBT to particularly helpful. Before this diagnosis, I’ve had everything from Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Episodic Anxiety, trauma, bipolar disorder (not accurate, its unknown AuDHD that was being misdiagnosed though i do find the meds helpful), and a host of eating disorders, the ONLY thing I’ve found CBT helpful for is the ED thought distortions and distorted perception surrounding my body and food. Anything else and it felt incredibly invalidating. Like why tell myself that being overwhelmed and anxious about stores helpful? Why not figure out WHY these things stress me out (Overstimulation) to actually figure out accommodations for myself? It’s almost like CBT sets out to treat all your defensive/coping mechanisms as unhelpful and unhealthy. Let me work WITH my mind. Ive had these issues since a TINY LITTLE kid, so it’s not like the fears and overwhelmed developed from traumatic experiences-they just always WERE. I don’t have distorted thoughts surrounding stores, social events, etc.. I just have an overly sensitive and different perspective. I’m AuDHD. I’m an overthinker-thats my standard. Asking me to think MORE feels kinda pointless because I’ve already looked at things from a dozen different angles. Yes i do have some “distorted” thinking, but I’ve also already been rebuffing that since.. well as long as i can remember. CBT only helps unless I can’t counter-argue my own points on my own, and that has only been relegated to ED issues. Looking back, i can see why i never trusted certain therapists-because they focused more on CBT and it’s quite possible i felt invalidated by them. I think it does help some people and for specific trauma related issues, but as a standard? Nah.

[@d.d.d.a.a.a.n.n.n]

This statement of yours resonates so strongly with me: "It’s almost like CBT sets out to treat all your defensive/coping mechanisms as unhelpful and unhealthy." It's really cruel imo to make a person strip away all their coping mechanisms without fully understanding why they developed them, and finding gentler and more useful new ways to cope

[@TheCagedCorvid]

I'm late diagnosed too (audhd) with a lot of trauma, and cbt feels a lot like aba for your thoughts rather than your behaviour, where the punishment is invalidation and gaslighting. I tried it as it's the only thing available to me (I'm in the uk and can't afford private therapy), big mistake... huge. I've kind of lost hope at this point.

[@rachelann9362]

@@d.d.d.a.a.a.n.n.n perhaps it’s the way my brain is wired, but I have found answers to WWWW questions to be an essential part in dismantling and adjust coping mechanisms to healthier things. Take me and stores. I hate it. It overwhelms. The cacophony of a sounds, the flickering, buzzing and unnatural hues of fluorescent lighting, the onslaught of smells, the dizzying displays of colors and disorganized patterns, and that’s not even considering the people. What would be unhealthy is completely avoiding stores, or fighting through the sensory overload until I’m at an anxious or angry meltdown or what looks like a panic attack forcing me to leave before I’m done or struggling to make decisions that heighten my emotional state (bc my brain stops making choices then-even the decision to LEAVE can be difficult.) Is me going in with headphones with some music or a podcast that’s loud enough to cover up most of the noises but not block out someone directly talking to me, and using sunglasses and/or a hat really an unhealthy coping skill? I’d argue no, not for the autistic mind. That’s just me creating my own accommodations and I started doing that back in my early 20s, long before even I considered autism. Looking back, almost all my “panic attacks” was sensory overload and exhaustion, which explains why cognitive therapy and exposure didn’t help much at all. It just made me push the overload until I got home.

[@rachelann9362]

@@TheCagedCorvid I can’t say it’s much better in the states. My assessment literally makes a note that services for adults are lacking or nonexistent, and the only recommendation was to try and hit up the department of vocational and aging rehabilitation services. Meanwhile, I’m looking at losing my state Medicaid at the end of the moment (just got the notice) because my spouse makes slightly above the limit but doesn’t qualify us for reasonable Obamacare subsidies for health premiums (which does nothing to help with deductible costs.) mind you, I’m also being treated for adhd, depression, trauma, bipolar, migraines, and a host of other medical issues. I spent the last 3 hours looking on state websites to see what I need to do to POSSIBLY get a needy health waiver to get a maybe higher income threshold. I can barely talk myself into taking showers, let alone calling in and dropping in on various agencies when one drive is bound to have me exhausted for days. Anyway, I’m not trying to overshadow you, it’s my way of empathizing with you. It just sucks for autistic people worldwide, sometimes more so if we’re late diagnosed because it implies you hit a major breaking down point. I have found being in autistic-led communities to be most helpful. So many in the problem just don’t get it. My psychiatrist didn’t even acknowledge the ASD diagnosis from the neuropsych SHE ordered (to confirm my ADHD, I don’t think she believed my self reporting, and based on her notes are my visits i think I’m justified in thinking that.. they absolutely do not reflect what I report to her.) Sorry for going off on a bit of a rant.

[@toni2309]

I'm auDHD and have some trauma and also found CBT to be helpful for very specific things (when I'm overthinking societal expectations it helps to realize I can change my thoughts and not stress out as much), but I find that it has only become useful once I was able to seperarate additional stress from thinking from autistic stuff and trauma stuff. Not realizing I was having emotional flashbacks made CBT so invalidating.

[@anomally9742]

I really appreciate you bringing up how it can be used as a tool to oppress, and how it often doesn’t take into account the real, lived experiences of the person it’s being used on. CBT shouldn’t be the default. It has to fit the persons needs and it’s just not a great fit for everyone. Most peoples problems and symptoms aren’t something we can just think ourselves out of. If we could, it would be done by now.

[@livewellwitheds6885]

CBT is basically self gaslighting. as somebody who primarily goes to therapy to deal with the impacts of ableism, i do aggree that you cant think your way out of discrimination! ive had so many bad experiences of therapists telling me i feel bad because i use the term "malpractice" or "ableism" instead of understanding that no matter what i call malpractice IT WILL HURT ME

[@c-3786]

The way it was explained to me sounded like triggering on purpose then regulating. I hate it. So glad I found my trauma informed therapists

[@andrea-hs2xh]

I read something recently about someone's experience with a therapist who had explained the limitations of clinical work while they were still living within an abusive situation because (paraphrasing) 'the point of therapy is not to adapt to existing in an unsafe environment'. It makes a lot of sense why a CBT approach would be so popular with employers when it puts all the responsibility on the client/employee to think differently about their situation, which is way cheaper than increasing wages, better PTO, better systems in place for work/life balance etc.

[@av9049-e7l]

Exactly, CBT is the perfect therapy in capitalism. And it reinforces status quo, individual-based thinking, not seeing structural barriers, not criticising the system.

[@sophrito]

Mickey, you have so many great videos, but this is already my favorite, and I know I'll be sharing it with people. I wish I knew this in 2011 when I started therapy! Actually, my first therapist was amazing and didn't use CBT. I've been chasing after that amazing experience I had with her ever since, and you made me realize CBT was the common thread between the not-as-good experiences and missing from the great experiences. Thanks for everything you do. I know you're helping people because you've certainly helped me! :)

[@DaughterofDiogenes]

7:02 you are describing where I’m at right now and I’m realizing this is why I am still in therapy at 44 after being in therapy on and off for my whole life. The best I’ve gotten so far is breathing exercises and mindfulness but I haven’t found anyone who’s worked on healing my nervous system and I feel like a raw nerve.