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CBT is kind of gaslighty

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NoWhereKnowWhere

MyPTSD Pro
I’d like to preface this with acknowledging that CBT can be very useful and a lot of people find it helpful. Like most most modalities it’s the therapeutic relationship that’s the most important factor rather than they type of therapy.

Now, that being said CBT is quite often used as a self help. I’ll guess a few of us have had some form of it and probably read some books probably the “feeling good” one.

I do still use some cbt skills I’ve learned and it is the absolute go to (sometimes the only thing the nhs offers for literally everything) for the nhs because it’s cheap and evidence based.

All that being said I find it (I’m finding it hard to find the words) gaslighty. Take for example hyper vigilance and being a survivor of a systematic type of abuse. Like for example a hate crime or of gendered violence, when we explain to a therapist being hyper aware around men after sexual violence isn’t that justified? All women are conditioned to be aware from a very early age. I can see where cbt can have a place but it sometimes feels like it’s invalidating to the realities of the real world. Where you’re probably not being paranoid and your co-worker probably is racist and micro aggressive and you probably should keep records of it. Where if you’ve gotten bad vibes and red flags off your boyfriends friend you’re probably right to be scared.

I’ve very much fallen out of love with cbt. I think dbt is the better looking sibling but still has some of the same problems. I can radically except that things are shit and sometimes people are terrible. I can offer myself self compassion and care because that really sucks. I’m just a little sick of feeling like I’m the problem when the problem is societal.

another thing if you’re already a victim of gaslighting it’s a slippery slope and I don’t like the way that cbt constantly makes me question my reality when that was used as a means of abuse for me in the past. I already have to do a lot of self assurance to validate my feelings and cbt feels like a step in the wrong direction. I can, doand will continue to work on myself (yes it wasn’t my fault but I’m the one responsible to try to heal).

I’m interested as well did anyone have the experience of getting worse/more symptomatic after/during CBT. Then never feeling quite as stable as before cbt?

please don’t come for me I know there are big advocates on the site. I just think it’s not the catch all the NHS would like to believe it to be and for more marginalised people with the wrong therapist it could be potentially dangerous.
 
Do you have a T who is also in the marginalized community? With regards to what others might say here about CBT, anyone who would promote it in such a way as to make you the problem for why what's happening is happening with it, would be someone who doesn't know anything about whiteness.

That being said, I'm a white woman and don't know the half of what you've been through. I can understand somewhat what it feels like to be triggered by the cBT gaslighty feeling since one of my qualifiers is being terrorized by a gaslighter. I just wanted to say that what you're experiencing is real and valid ....and it isn't you who is the problem.

ADMIN EDIT: I've announced in post #23 that anyone replying to the side-topic of race in this thread will be thread-banned.
 
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Just to clarify I am white.
I don’t have a therapist at the moment due to....NHS.
I have had trauma focused CBT 6 years ago from a cishet male psychologist that was... not a good experience.
 
All that being said I find it (I’m finding it hard to find the words) gaslighty.
I was under the impression that CBT had you replace your thoughts with other thoughts rather than manipulate you into changing your thoughts without your knowledge. I see where you're coming from, but there is a distinction between changing how you view something and having someone try to change your reality without your knowledge.

when we explain to a therapist being hyper aware around men after sexual violence isn’t that justified?
Yes, it can be, but I think the goal of CBT is to help you understand that all men aren't violent. It is normal to react that way, but you can change that into only reacting that way to actual threats. Changing your thoughts, then changing your brain. It is not denying any of what you feel, it is trying to get you to see other ways to feel. If I come across a man that gives me bad vibes, CBT or no I will get away. I would like to view the category men without fear.

I hope you can see what I'm saying. I'm not in any way coming after you, just discussing.
 
when we explain to a therapist being hyper aware around men after sexual violence isn’t that justifie
It's understandable. But it isn't healthy for us. I have this core belief: all men are unsafe. And it is robbing me of being ok, of assessing risk appropriately, of thinking of situations for what they are rather than interpreting them into something else. E.g a few weeks ago I was the only female left in the hairdresser's with 4 male hairdressers. I think at least 3 of then were gay. But in my head popped a message: they are all going to rape me now. Trauma response rather than taking in the information around me in the moment.
Saying all that, I don't know about CBT, but my T is working on me being able to assess the moment safely. Not abandoning healthy assessments of who is around me, but not bringing in trauma response to that assessment.
If that makes sense?
So it is my response to the situation that needs to change to a healthy one (which isn't denying that there is risk out there).
 
Just to clarify I am white.
I don’t have a therapist at the moment due to....NHS.
I have had trauma focused CBT 6 years ago from a cishet male psychologist that was... not a good experience.
No idea why I interpreted that way. Most of my comment still stands. Any time my perception is questioned or if I'm told my perception is wrong, I am triggered even if my perception is actually wrong. It's really difficult. I think CBT is effective like the science shows, but I also do think that more than one modality along with it is helpful. Not everything is one size fits all. That's all I got.
 
with the wrong therapist it could be potentially dangerous.
Any actually useful/effective therapy is dangerous with the wrong therapist.

BehaviorMod is my personal stare at it and hiss like a cat.
Even though I use it all the durn time, to very happy experience & effect, for decades it was used out in he wise world to it’s worst possible experience and effect. The only reason I don’t have childhood trauma surrounding behavior mod therapy? My grandfather was a surgeon, (meaning he had no problem telling people to f*ck off); who took a keen interest in people, & how they worked (not just physiologically). He was also raised on a farm. Breaking horses and dogs? Rather than training them? Is lazy, was his opinion. And breaking children, so they’d behave better, would find him breaking you. With his Irish stick. (Gaelic spells things beyond my ability to imitate. It’s cudgel like, with a big knot on one end.)

Most existing therapies -the useful & effective ones, anyway- are used IN torture/interrogation, in different ways, in order to break people down and extract info from them. They’re “just” being used to serve the interrogators, rather than the “client”.

A therapist is a highly trained manipulator. In unethical or incompetent hands? Any therapy they use on people can be exceptionally dangerous. A surgeon is a highly trained blades expert. In unethical or incompetent hands, any cut they make can be exceptionally dangerous. Most people are asleep whilst a surgeon is cutting on them, and most people are made equally vulnerable in the hands of a therapist. In good hands, a person is helped. In bad hands?

I happen to be a huge proponent of CBT. And you’ll not only get no argument from me that in bad hands it’s dangerous, but my enthusiastic agreement. Of course it is.
 
The cult I grew up in used CBT techniques extensively for thought control. To this day, if I sense a smattering of CBT in ANY interaction with a mental health professional, I will shut down or lash out so fast it leaves them speechless. I actually don't qualify for some government programs because CBT is such a trauma trigger for me, and CBT is ALL they use. Yeah, I'm not a fan. I prefer other modalities, even in spite of the trauma issue. I just don't like being told what/how to think.
 
Do you have a T who is also in the marginalized community? With regards to what others might say here about CBT, anyone who would promote it in such a way as to make you the problem for why what's happening is happening with it, would be someone who doesn't know anything about whiteness.

That being said, I'm a white woman and don't know the half of what you've been through. I can understand somewhat what it feels like to be triggered by the cBT gaslighty feeling since one of my qualifiers is being terrorized by a gaslighter. I just wanted to say that what you're experiencing is real and valid ....and it isn't you who is the problem.

I think it’s....telling....that you only believe people of color can be marginalized. Women are by default the “other” in society. This is evidenced by so many things, of which the medical industry alone is a huge issue in this realm.
 
I’m almost 65 and have had ptsd all my life. No one has ever helped me until 2014 when I met a fantastic psychologist who used trauma based therapy on me for 6 years. I felt so much better! She was promoted and now I have a psychologist who insists on using CBT on me. She sets me off every session with her type of therapy. She’s the second new psychologist I’ve seen at this facility, and I don’t want to be seen as difficult, but it’s just not working out. It’s incredibly hard to find the right fit for yourself. She’s triggering me. I don’t know what to do next. I see now how triggering CBT can be.
 
Where you’re probably not being paranoid and your co-worker probably is racist and micro aggressive and you probably should keep records of it. Where if you’ve gotten bad vibes and red flags off your boyfriends friend you’re probably right to be scared.
Done well? CBT is meant to increase, rather than decrease, your confidence in your own assessment of situations, and the way that you decide to respond to them. So that you can look at situations like these and know that you're not responding emotionally, or based on preconceived ideas, but on the reality of what is actually happening.

That's one of the differences between gaslighting and CBT. Gaslighting undermines your ability to assess situations and respond appropriately. CBT on the other hand, gives you tools to really trust your own assessment of things, and make empowered decisions about how to respond.

If it wasn't pitched to you very well, I can understand how that would go all sorts of wrong. But, that's true of any therapy being promoted by incompetent or insufficiently skilled Ts unfortunately.
 
I just wanted to share to share some space for other people who may be cbt critical. I often times get the impression with cbt type therapy that if it didn’t work we are asked to hold personal responsibility. Like we didn’t do the work we didn’t do the homework it’s our fault we’re not doing it right.

I’m seeing online a lot of up and coming therapist who are also critical of cbt. There seems to be a turning of the tide with it.

it makes perfect sense that it’s not for everyone. Antidepressants aren’t, emdr isn’t, so why is cbt (in the uk) the go to and no other options are given. It doesn’t make sense. Well it makes sense when it’s a set amount of sessions and therefore cheap but, for everyone? It just can’t be.
 
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