Is CBT gaslighting?

[Sunrise]

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[biscuits]

Being made to feel like you do could be down to ineffective delivery. It's not right that you've been made to feel like that at all. Sorry that your experiences have been so cruel.

CBT is about how thoughts shape behaviour and how the behaviours feed the thoughts to create a cycle of avoidance. It's all self perpetuating - goes round in a circle of avoidant thoughts and behaviours, and so change can't happen.

CBT is more about changing patterns of thoughts and behaviours. When there are underlying factors then it's not really going to take those into consideration. It's not really an appropriate form of therapy for everyone. For some people it's fantastic. Like all things, you gotta keep looking out for what works best for you to help you live through the life situations that you experience.

[BFG_]

I found cbt total bollocks about as useful as trying to retrain your brain not to think of the colour purple if someone shows you the color purple.

ACT was more helpful though I probably didn't get it totally right my interpretation ended up being who gives a shit the whole world's broken why should I bother trying to fix myself.

[Amara 94]

I don't think it is as CBT acknowledges that our thoughts are different to our feelings, something that is easy for most of us to miss if we don't pay attention. Our emotions are also different from our feelings.

But I do think that CBT isn't the thing that solves everyone's mental issues as it seems to ignore emotions I think and then a lot of treatment even, ignores the system that might be creating our disorders. I have been watching about internal family systems treatment.

[Hopeforme]

Originally Posted by Sunrise

My previous experiences have been like, if I was talk to about my poor relationships with other people and how people I know always end up taking a real dislike to me, the solution is always to "reframe" it and look at how that statement is incorrect.

But no, that statement IS correct. I don't need to "reframe" anything, that's not the issue. Pretending it's "all in my head" is really bad therapy. I haven't learnt anything and will just end up making the same mistakes over and over again. And that's what has actually happened, and now I just hate people and don't want to do anything anymore. Repeatedly engaging in the same unhelpful behaviours has been so unhelpful, it's probably the worst thing you can do.

I need the sort of therapy that involves learning how to change who I am. I don't need to "reframe" thoughts, I need to completely change my thoughts, feelings and behaviours. But I'm told that's not what therapy is. Therapy is about guiding you in the right direction, but that's not what I need. It feels like you have to be relatively mentally healthy for therapy to be successful, which completely defeats the object for me.

I hate being told I'm ok when I'm not. That's almost like positive gaslighting but it's equally unhelpful. If people see me as a complete freak I'd rather be aware of that so I can at least try to tone down my behaviour. Self-consciousness is a good thing when you're behaving in a socially unacceptable way because you can at least try to improve. I don't want to be less self-conscious, I'd rather be more so, it's a good thing.

I don't think a good CBT therapist would work in that way. If everyone dislikes you, then it would be stupid to reframe it positively. Better to find out why and work on that. From your second paragraph you know that anyway.

Find a better therapist and maybe a specialist in social anxiety. I would think they are much less likely to dismiss your social feedback experiences in such a way. I think, to be pedantic when it comes to words, you want better self-awareness and less self-consciousness at least in the jittery, anxious sense. I just think you've been unlucky and met some shit therapists and you seem to know 90% of the answers to your questions anyway so trust your gut feeling more.

[Marco]

I think CBT only stands a chance of working if your problem is due to a faulty self-perception. The working assumption is that’s it all in your head and that there’s nothing truly wrong with you. Challenge and correct this warped view of yourself and everything should fall into place. For many people this probably works, but not if there’s a genuine underlying problem. In the wrong hands I think CBT is potentially quite a harmful therapy.