Cognative behavior therepy

[cumulus.james]

Has anyone tried cogenitive be havior therepy? Wat does it involve and did it work?

 

[iSurf]

CBT is a very board area, but I think in a nutshell it helps people to change the way they think about themselves. Its based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change.

CBT is usually short sessions of an hour or less and the therapist will usually give "homework assignments" meaning you might try things to work towards any goals you set for yourself or to engage in activities that could bring meaning or pleasure.

I'd say CBT is extremely effective if you're willing to make some changes or to try new things. I did it last year for 6 months and the only reason I've stopped is because I relocated to a stupid, small town where there are no resources out here. I would have kept going as last year I was actually feeling better about a my sense of wellbeing in general. Its interesting, as nothing really changed in my life, I was just able to think more realistically and rationally about things. I wasted 9 years and a lot of money on antidepressant medications, and yet just 6 months of therapy made a difference. So I'm more in favor of speaking to someone rather than popping pills. But you have to find the right therapist, its the same thing as finding the right doctor. There are so many of them out there, but only a few that you will click with.

 

[cumulus.james]

Thanks for the reply. I think it might be worth trying. Medication has done me no favours thats for sure. Im guessing your not rom the uk. We don't get a choice in who we see over here, and A great therepist is gonna work in the private sector more than the NHS I would think as we are a money driven people now. I might get an "ok" therepist, but more likly they will be average and thats what worrys me. When it comes to mental health treatment in this country unless you are going out causing trouble and/or hurting people then you only get the most basic of help and then you have to fight to get it. I was trying for 10 years to get councelling. Never got it to this day. Indeed the CBT has been requested but I've still yet to get any sign of an appointment.

CBT is a very board area, but I think in a nutshell it helps people to change the way they think about themselves. Its based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change.

CBT is usually short sessions of an hour or less and the therapist will usually give "homework assignments" meaning you might try things to work towards any goals you set for yourself or to engage in activities that could bring meaning or pleasure.

I'd say CBT is extremely effective if you're willing to make some changes or to try new things. I did it last year for 6 months and the only reason I've stopped is because I relocated to a stupid, small town where there are no resources out here. I would have kept going as last year I was actually feeling better about a my sense of wellbeing in general. Its interesting, as nothing really changed in my life, I was just able to think more realistically and rationally about things. I wasted 9 years and a lot of money on antidepressant medications, and yet just 6 months of therapy made a difference. So I'm more in favor of speaking to someone rather than popping pills. But you have to find the right therapist, its the same thing as finding the right doctor. There are so many of them out there, but only a few that you will click with.

 

[iSurf]

Hey, you are right I'm not from the UK. I'm here in the United States and the healthcare system here is very **** in its own way... everything is pretty much private and you have to have health insurance to not have to pay out of pocket for everything. But for mental health the coverage is next to nothing, i.e. insurance companies don't pay for the costs of counseling or most meds for that matter because they consider such services to be "experimental" or some other stupid language they use.

Its funny because I've always thought universal healthcare would benefit this place, but people here are not ready for it. Yet you also point out how frustrating a universal healthcare system is as well. Its just everything is so expensive here, all those CBT sessions I paid for out of my pocket.

You are just like me with the whole antidepressant hype. I really think its ******** more and more. There are tons of articles in medical journals that show antidepressants are no more effective than placebo, but people mindlessly still take them because their doctors write them prescriptions and the doctors and the drug companies just laugh and make profits off of the consumers. Well this turned out into a huge rant - LOL. I hope you get some sort of treatment, feel free to let me know how it goes if you get somewhere with the system.

 

[cumulus.james]

I don't trust antidepressants. For a start most of them make you near impotent - so even if you do feel a bit better you have no hope of a sex life, which gets you down even more. The ones that don't make you impotent make you fat, which is what happened to me. The last lot I had made me go from 154lbs to 250lbs in just over a year! Thanks a lot doc... So now I spend most my time in the gym or trying not to eat anything.

Your heath system has to be better than ours, the diffrence between NHS and Health insurance is that with NHS we are FORCED to pay and have no choice or control. I'd much rather chose to pay what I want and have controll. Slo as your hospitals and doctors are privately run companies they have to stive to do thier best or you can chose to take your cusom elsewhere. With the NHS they dont have any such preassure, so if something goes wrong its just a statistic. And if you dont get the best care/treatment theres pretty much nothing you can do about it.

We've adopted the US system of sueing everyone for eveything over here the past few years, and some "no win no fee" comapnies had started up for health claims. I liked that because I thought it would make the NHS up thier game if it was gonna cost them when they made mistakes. But the NHS then claimed that the were having to cut back because of paying out for law suits, now the government is trying to bring in laws to make it hard for people to take action against the NHS.

But being old must be terrifying over here. There is definately an unspoken rule of anyone over 60 gets too ill to bother with let em die. Our cancer survival ates are way below yours, cacner survival rates in the US were highest in one report. Britain scored lowest in Europe for cancer and heart survival rates.

On the other hand we dont tend to get shot at very much lol

Hey, you are right I'm not from the UK. I'm here in the United States and the healthcare system here is very **** in its own way... everything is pretty much private and you have to have health insurance to not have to pay out of pocket for everything. But for mental health the coverage is next to nothing, i.e. insurance companies don't pay for the costs of counseling or most meds for that matter because they consider such services to be "experimental" or some other stupid language they use.

Its funny because I've always thought universal healthcare would benefit this place, but people here are not ready for it. Yet you also point out how frustrating a universal healthcare system is as well. Its just everything is so expensive here, all those CBT sessions I paid for out of my pocket.

You are just like me with the whole antidepressant hype. I really think its ******** more and more. There are tons of articles in medical journals that show antidepressants are no more effective than placebo, but people mindlessly still take them because their doctors write them prescriptions and the doctors and the drug companies just laugh and make profits off of the consumers. Well this turned out into a huge rant - LOL. I hope you get some sort of treatment, feel free to let me know how it goes if you get somewhere with the system.