Experiences with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

[NobleAce]

I was planning on going to therapy.

From what I've read everywhere says CBT is the most effective in reducing social anxiety but I was hoping to hear some first hand accounts of what it was like? and how effective it was?

Thanks for any replies.

BTW I'm new and not sure if this is the right board for this. Sorry if it isn't.

[dustyfied]

If you want to do therapy then CBT is probably a good choice. However, I don't know you, and I don't know how severe your social anxiety is. I'd definitely first discuss your options with your GP. Maybe https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/ can give you some pointers as well.

It's been a long time ago for me, but I did find CBT useful. I was doing intensive (daily) therapy with a small group of people. Someone would bring up a subject, and that was then explored, sometimes with simple role plays. We basically explored what we were feeling in certain social situations, and then try to connect the dots (i.e. where does this feeling come from) and finding ways to deal/cope with the situation.

I think nowadays most therapies are once a week, which I would personally find difficult. Having more intensive therapy made me feel more comfortable with the therapist and others in the group. It also made the sessions more intense. I think it's more difficult to properly stir up shit if you know you're going to on your own for a week, without support.

It did not reduce my social anxiety but I did make some friends. That did really help me.

[Dougella]

CBT can definitely be helpful for anxiety so I would say give it a go if you're considering it. It's the therapy most commonly offered on the NHS so if you go to your GP it's quite likely that it's what you will be referred for.

If you have more deep-seated issues from childhood or more severe anxiety or multiple mental health diagnoses you might need different kinds of therapy or longer term support (which are sometimes harder to get on the NHS). But you can look into that more further down the line if you need to.

[Counterpoint]

Childhood traumas can go very deep, so I've often felt CBT makes enormous claims to be able to help people in all kinds of areas, and there seems to be a CBT book these days for virtually everything you can think of. However, some people get on well with it.

I think the old adage is true, that there is no one-size-fits-all therapy, so the best way is to give something a go for yourself. I found CBT quite helpful when I tried a group course once, but it needs to be practiced consistently and you need to up the fear factor to get results. The behavioural and practical is very important, it isn't enough to just try to combat your negative thoughts.

You may find EFT interesting too. Sebastiaan is a brilliant coach, with life experiece of social anxiety himself. https://www.social-anxiety-solutions.com/

His website can seem a bit life-coach bloke wants your money, but he is 100% genuine and works tirelessly to help people with social anxiety (and obviously he needs to earn a living). His youtube videos are excellent. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCac...puX9Svn9i8uYXA

[Selkie]

I think CBT can be really helpful - I found this with an NHS course of CBT although it was too short. It's good to be able both to challenge negative thoughts and to begin to face situations you fear in a gradual way.

But as well as how much you are suited to it, it's also how well therapists can apply CBT. I saw one therapist who was determined that every problem was a result of my irrational thinking. That approach was very invalidating and did not improve my problems at all! I'd have been better off with a therapist who allowed me to decide where I thought I was being irrational.

[Dougella]

^ That's an important point, not all of our thoughts or fears are irrational. It's important to challenge the ones that are but sometimes we might have experiences in social situations that are genuinely unpleasant or things that happened to us in the past that were actually wrong.

[Bored]

I think group CBT therapy should be available more, I was only offered one to one CBT, but I think a group would of been more helpful , also it would be more cost effective for the NHS .

To the original poster, I would say go for it, put your name down now as there is probably a long waiting list.

[limey123]

It definitely helped me. I say go for it, you've nothing to lose and lots to gain.

[AnxiousExtrovert]

My view on this was mainly covered in other post regarding the services set up for short term acute illness.

I think cbt is great for blips and helpful support and teaching for rehabilitating or as said a non complex issue. Particularly anxiety alone.

What I'm about to put maybe a therapist issue or the rigidness of the service offered via the NHS but it's not adequate for deeper or more complex issues.

For short term issues I found the group seminars better because they teach the basics of cbt and take Q&A there which I found the lecturers very good. The 1v1 sessions I didnt find good and I often felt I knew more regarding real life experience of mental health and the problems encountered than the therapist unfortunately.

[Bleaney]

I currently have 4 sessions left of my 16 session course. I would say that it is has definitely been helpful, although I am far from cured.

Once I understood that I was suffering from SA, I was completely overwhelmed by how much information there is so readily available online. I literally did not know where to start. So to have someone go through the main areas with me in a guided and structured fashion has been a huge help. By treating my CBT course as my entry point into the subject, it's given me a foundation to build on and to do lots of my own research.

So due to the course of therapy, and my own research, I have definitely progressed my understanding of anxiety in general, social anxiety specifically, and my self-awareness of my own issues. It would have been a waste of time if it had failed to do those things, so on those grounds alone it has been worth while.

I now feel better informed at least, and have learnt some practical techniques that can help, and some of the exercises like video feedback are very useful. Time will tell how much these practical techniques help. I learn best by doing, and I think the parts of CBT I will get the most out is the doing parts.

It is looking likely that I'm not going to solve all of my issues with this course. I was over optimistic to ever think that it would or could. It now seems clearer that I probably have issues other than just anxiety, and so things are a little more complicated. I would imagine this would be the case for many people.

Its fine in theory to help a person discover what their safety behaviours are, and then advise the person to drop them in a systematic way. Then, so the theory goes, the person will learn that the anxiety will no longer be maintained. Unfortunately this seems oversimplified to me. Or, maybe I'm missing something, or CBT is missing something. I'm not sure yet.

CBT is not perfect or complete by any means, it has many frustrating aspects, the way the focus is so narrow is chief among them. The main problem with CBT for me, is that I wanted it to be more than it is. I suppose that's my own fault for having unrealistic expectations.

I didn't know how things would progress and unfold. Sometimes the only way to know that is to go through the experience. I presented with the problem of anxiety and that is indeed what is focussed on. I don't think my therapist quite knows how to deal with some of the other things I'm throwing at her, which may be linked to and related to anxiety but they are not pure and simple anxiety alone. I need to remind myself to focus on the problem of anxiety for my remaining 4 sessions, so that I can get the most out of them.

In an ideal world I'd have a therapist that would be trained in all disciplines and could have said "right you've gone over the bounds of what CBT can deal with there, so lets deal with that problem using X, Y, or Z"

CBT never claimed to be more than it is, and it is limited. Having said that, I would have no hesitation to recommend giving it a go. It can't fail to progress your journey in some way.

[Mo34]

It wasn't for me. It's too surface and also to short. I didn't feel it actually addressed anything. Also for me the relationship with the therapist is the most important aspect I guess.

I'm definitely more a person centred counselling person. I've been forced into CBT on a number of occasions by the NHS and the 3rd sector. Recently saw a psychologist though and she said the cognitive part of CBT would never work on me, which at least has validated my poor experiences of CBT.

On saying that some people find it very helpful. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

[Laurel]

I call CBT, confusion behavioural therapy.
Basically in your mind there's a confusion which causes you to have an elevated response to something. The basic idea is to discover what that 'confusion' is. There's 10 'thinking' disorders commonly attributed to CBT. Like emotional reasoning, over personifying , black/white thinking. It is useful as a take.

[Sunrise]

CBT focuses on the symptoms of a problem rather than the cause. In that respect it's very good, but it doesn't take into account any underlying issues. It's pretty much useless if used on it's own for people who have any underlying issues with trauma. For me it did more harm than good for that reason so I'd be very wary of taking the "what have you got to lose!" approach to it.

The quick fix 6 week long one size fits all CBT courses are flawed as they often fail to acknowledge any underlying issues and focus too much on present symptoms. They're very good for people "going through a bad patch" but for anything long term they're a sticking plaster at best. It made things worse for me in the long term because I became too focused on analysing everything and looking for evidence that confirmed my negative beliefs. The CBT course I was given was clearly tailored towards people with very different issues and experiences to my own.

It certainly has it's uses but it has to be implemented correctly. It's not a miracle cure and it's probably best used as part of a package involving several different types of treatment. Unfortunately that usually means £££.

[limey123]

@Bleaney: One of my fave poems, "Mr Bleaney"

[Bleaney]

Originally Posted by limey123

@Bleaney: One of my fave poems, "Mr Bleaney"

Yes, that is indeed where my user name comes from. I'm not going to think too much about why I chose than particular name at this time