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A thread of the posts by @cait.bsky.social. They read as follows:
I had my first talk therapy session with my new therapist and she hit me with the “you’re very self-aware” ☹️
not the “pleasure to have in class” of therapy
that’s right, I know all the tools and have developed countertools so they no longer work. welcome to thunderdome
Ok but it’s great for what it’s great for. CBT can’t fix poverty, but it can fix a tendency to let minor setbacks spiral into full blown panic attacks or an inability to ask loved ones for help.
Plenty of problems aren’t the sort therapy can help with despite them having huge mental effects. But plenty of people have problems therapy is actively good for. In the same way therapy won’t fix your (rational) economic anxiety, if you torpedo every relationship you’re in communism won’t fix you, but DBT might.
That’s great for the people for whom talk therapy and CBT is effective, but the point of my comment and presumably the point of the comment I replied to is that talk therapy using CBT is the de facto standard in the West even when it harms people.
Again, happy that the CBT-lovers have found their thing, but those of us that find it patronizing and minimizing to be told we’re what’s wrong (for CBT not working like it does for others) instead of the clinical framework not being right for us should have the right to push back against clinicians and pro-therapy laypeople placing specific models of care on a pedestal.
If you can’t see that CBT is being applied as a one-size-fits-all solution, especially for young adults and at free/subsidized municipal clinics (who have clients highly affected by poverty and minority stressors), I really don’t know what to tell you. It’s harmful to people but you feel like you can’t talk about it because then people think you’re either entirely anti-therapy, antisocial/defiant, or drug-seeking.
Ok cool, you’re absolutely not taking my argument as I made it. I was acknowledging that it’s bad for several things it’s bad for (implying it’s commonly prescribed for those things) but also acknowledging that it’s worth accepting that it’s good for what it’s good for. Maybe it’s bad for some people who have problems it’s good for. But I’ve seen people who desperately need the skills it teaches parrot the rhetoric of it being useless and harmful before so I do feel a desire to speak up in its defense as well.
Hopefully you’ll get what you need, regardless of what it is. And yeah, poor people disproportionately need financial assistance more than training to see cognitive distortions.
Hopefully you get what you need so that you don’t react like someone shot your dog for suggesting CBT isn’t the fucking amazing solution you believe it is. I don’t need your pity or fake concern.
It’s ironic that you’re the one who thinks your point was completely ignored when you still don’t understand that the “skills” it “teaches” to you are not the same skills it teaches others that the framework literally doesn’t work for. But it seems like you don’t want your preconceived notions challenged by alternative lived experiences, so I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising.
I’m sick of paying for therapy that doesn’t work and having the therapist not offer me any alternatives other than CBT after years of it not working. I have asked for DBT, knowing it works specifically for me personally (from experience with a sole therapist who actually listened), and been denied because “CBT is more broadly effective.” So I’m sort of done propping it up and I want others to stop too.
There’s one person acting like their dog was shot here and it’s you
Even if that were true, it would be because you’re being confrontational about my and others’ lived experiences in defense of a clincal practice being broadly applied to people who have stated that it has harmed their mental wellbeing.
I’ll never be sorry for asserting my belief in effective mental health management that treats people with dignity rather than CBT-no-matter-what. That’s really all there is to it, and you’re the one who intially replied to me, so it really does seem from my point of view like you’re the one with the issue.
I’m actually not the same person.
Ah, I didn’t notice. You still did initially reply to me though. My first comment in this thread was intended to be commiseration with someone who shares my perspective and I wasn’t anticipating being attacked for agreeing that CBT is not all sunshine and rainbows for everyone forced into it.
Maybe because you framed CBT as inherently and universally “jank as fuck”, without initially acknowledging that there are many situations it does work for.
Also, no one is forced into CBT without a court order.