# Cognitive Behavioural Therapy



## John Paul (Jun 19, 2009)

Ok, I have just started this with my psychologist and although she gave me a brief explanation as to what it was, I want to know what it actually is about and I assume there is people on here that have tried it so can anybody tell me if it actually helps or did it help for you and what it's all about?.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

John Paul said:


> Ok, I have just started this with my psychologist and although she gave me a brief explanation as to what it was, I want to know what it actually is about and I assume there is people on here that have tried it so can anybody tell me if it actually helps or did it help for you and what it's all about?.


ill give you an explanation later on 2day when ive got time but what i will say for now is read gillian butlers book overcoming social anxiety and shyness


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## John Paul (Jun 19, 2009)

socially inept said:


> ill give you an explanation later on 2day when ive got time but what i will say for now is read gillian butlers book overcoming social anxiety and shyness


Thank you.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

social anxiety disorder is a behavioural problem. social anxiety is defined by what you do , how you behave. for instacne a social phobic behaves completely differently to normal people e.g they avoid socializing, they dont talk, they dont express themselves etc....

behvaiour is caused by the way that you feel. if you feel anxious you will behave in a certain way, if you feel happy you will behave differently. the type of your behaviour is always the result of what stae you are in. you will never see a depressed person with a smile on thier face going around and striking up conversation with people. more likely they will be slump over in the corner sulking somewere

states and feelings like anxiety, confidence, depression etc.... always have a cause. the stae is the effect and the casue is always your thoughts. the concious mnd ca only handle 7 bits of info at once and whatever is int he concious mind will create a certain state.

now whatever that 7 bits of info int he concious mind is will vary from person to person. a social phobics concious mind will be full of completely different things than normal people. your concious min will includes sounds, images etc...and also thoughts like '' i dont belong here'' etc..., and were you place your attention.

the things that are in yuor mind are your own personally rpresentation of reality they are the meaning that you are giving to the situationt hat you are in. social phobics give a completely different meaning to social events than normal people do. the stuff in your concious mind is called an internal representation.

the type of internal representations social phobics create fr scial events are always ones that put them in an anxious state. and becasue they are in that state they behave in n anxious way

social phobics create different internal representations than normal people cos they hold certain belefis in their unconcious mind. these beleifs can be taken on genetically before birth, can be developed by modelling people in childhood, can be installed by parents, and can be created by negative experiences. 
it doesnt matter how those beleifs were created though, all that matters is that those beliefs are int he social phobics mind somehow

the goal of cbt is to help you to change unconcious beleifs and give you tools to change your internal representations when they arise. this will help you to feel better and therefore make it easier for you to behave differently

basically its to change your thoughts , whcich change your feelings which change your behaviour

(have a look in the main section of this board on page 2 at the thread titled ''the nlp communication model'')

cbt is fantastic for SA cos it is treating SA exactly the way it should be treated. but there is one problem. cbt works on a concious level. you have to change you thouhts conciously. this takes a lot of time and is hard if yuor uncconicous is not on board

the best ting to do is to use the gillian butler book as well as having a cbt therapist working with you (this gives you the concious side of things) and then also in your own time use unconcious tools aswell.

theuncocnious tools to use are :

*have 1-2 sessions with a hypnotherapist who combine cbt , nlp and timeline theray
*for 21 days listen to a hypnosis cd www.empoweringsounds.com
*after the 21 days listen to thinkrightnows ''conquering social anxety cd'' everyday until sa is gone (could take a very long time )

a lot of people say that cbt did not work for tem but i can guarantee that the reason why it didnt work is because they didnt have their uncocnious on board whilst they were trying to change conciously


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## Gregarrio (Jun 16, 2006)

Is it working for you?


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## LALoner (Dec 3, 2008)

Just like everything else CBT works for some people and does nothing for others. The only difference is that its the in thing right now. Eventually the hype will die down and people will see it as one valid option among many but until the hype dies down its going to get pushed hard.


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## John Paul (Jun 19, 2009)

Gregarrio said:


> Is it working for you?


I am still in the early stages of it and I have only had one more session since I started this thread, but in my previous session she just gave me some kind of homework to do, she gave me a couple of worksheets to fill in which is basically like a diary from hour to hour for the week and I have to fill in what I am doing in each hour and give my rating of 0-100 on how my anxiety is with 100 being the worst and she also told me to write down and be very specific of the surroundings of a time when I felt really anxious during the week so that's what I am up to this week.

I am still not sure about it, but I have only started it so I will wait and see how it goes before I pass a judgement on it.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

Gregarrio said:


> Is it working for you?


it worked when i tried it yes. at the moment im not workng on my SA at all cos ive got too muh going on carear wise but in 2008 i put a lot of effort into my SA. i combined cbt with unconcious tools and it worked yes


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## HustleRose (Jun 19, 2009)

I tried CBT for about two months. Personally, it didn't do anything for me. They expose you to certain fears, such as public speaking, but I think that until you don't change the way you think and perceive yourself, no amount of CBT or pills will help you.


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## xVeilOfMayaX (Jan 27, 2009)

i did cbt from a therapist who specialize in sa and used to have sa and it helped alot to the point to where my sa is almost gone. I think it depends on the therapist for instance my therapist used to have sa so she knows how the mind of a person with sa works rather then reading books to figure it out and can relate, also her other clients success rates were good


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## Positive (Jun 29, 2009)

I think hypnosis and listening to the self help will help, but I am very weary about trying something I have to pay.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

HustleRose said:


> I tried CBT for about two months. Personally, it didn't do anything for me. They expose you to certain fears, such as public speaking, but I think that until you don't change the way you think and perceive yourself, no amount of CBT or pills will help you.


well actually the main component of cbt is changing the way you think and percieve your self . the clue is in the title :

Cognitive (thoughts)
Behavioural (exposure)
Therapy

youve only used the behavioural side of cbt. combine the cognitive part with what youve already done and you should see some results


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

Positive said:


> I think hypnosis and listening to the self help will help, but I am very weary about trying something I have to pay.


true. make sure you listen to the right stuff though as some of it is useless. find the right stuff and its miracouslous

most hypnosis self help cds have a 100% money back guarantee


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## roverred (Dec 23, 2007)

I'll vouch for gillian butler's book, very good starting book. It was a bit too general for me though. CBT has been awesome for me, it has heightened my self awareness and external awareness of people. It has helped me understand myself to a new level and be able to understand other people, if you are really able to grasp it and it's concept. However, it is not so effective on sudden anxiety and "core beliefs"(or takes a long time). 

Would you say NLP better for that socially inept?


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

roverred said:


> I'll vouch for gillian butler's book, very good starting book. It was a bit too general for me though. CBT has been awesome for me, it has heightened my self awareness and external awareness of people. It has helped me understand myself to a new level and be able to understand other people, if you are really able to grasp it and it's concept. However, it is not so effective on sudden anxiety and "core beliefs"(or takes a long time).
> 
> Would you say NLP better for that socially inept?


yes its well better, absolutley . it doesthe same thing just on a different level, and better and far more efficiently

you can permantly change a beleif in minutes with nlp . with cbt it takes a lot of time and effort


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## delirium (Jun 24, 2009)

NLP sounds like bullish to me.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

delirium said:


> NLP sounds like bullish to me.


all i can say to that is try it and if it doesnt work then you can conclude that it is BS.

you risk nothing trying it, i doesnt cost you a penny cos you can do t yourself .

i can give you the instructions, in this thread, to do a parts intergration on yourself


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## Mobocracy (Jul 5, 2009)

I am living proof that cognitive behavioral therapy works. The effects of social anxiety disorder are minimal to me now that i have gone through CBT and am self aware of my fears and able to control them. The theory behind CBT is: Mood effects thought --> thought effects behavior and behavior effects mood. CBT is all about controlling these before they trigger the downward spiral. CBT makes you more self-aware of your emotions and how to deal with them.


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## flapjacker (Nov 30, 2008)

CBT is something you don't need a therapist for. it is something you can work on, yourself, if you have the motivation and focus. I'm not discrediting therapy, however.


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## delirium (Jun 24, 2009)

check out Dr. Thomas A. Richards' audio tapes. They're available at piratebay: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3652819/Dr._Thomas_A._Richards_-_Overcoming_Social_Anxiety

(am I allowed to link to this?)


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## dmizzyandblock11 (Jul 5, 2009)

so i came into this forum to see what CBT is. and i read the stuff in here, and well i still dont know EXACTLY what this is. i have a psychotherapist and all but i dont really trust her and tell her everything because if i tell her i dont take my pills, then forget it! lol. *but i might just ask her what this CBT is* - people say it works but i definitley have to find out more about this!


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## delirium (Jun 24, 2009)

> so i came into this forum to see what CBT is. and i read the stuff in here, and well i still dont know EXACTLY what this is. i have a psychotherapist and all but i dont really trust her and tell her everything because if i tell her i dont take my pills, then forget it! lol. *but i might just ask her what this CBT is* - people say it works but i definitley have to find out more about this!


CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is a style of therapy that involves identifying the thoughts that keep social anxiety (or depression, etc.) going. These are often irrational styles of thinking, like making crazy generalizations (e.g., "I'm unloveable", "I'm stupid"; contra "this person doesn't love me, but others do", "I'm stupid sometimes, but not always"), mind reading (assuming you know what other people think about you, or are thinking -- assuming they're thinking negatively about you, etc.), and others (See Gillian Butler's "Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness", or Dr. Burns' "Feeling Good"). That's the cognitive part of CBT.

Next is the behavioral part. The idea here is to take those negative/irrational thoughts about yourself and test them in real life. So, you do a mini experiment. Say you're embarrassed about blushing and think others judge you negatively for blushing so you cover your face with your hair whenever you blush. A mini experiment here would be to (a) identify (write down) what you expect/predict will happen when you blush, (b) go out into a social situation where you are likely to blush, (c) blush, but don't hide your face, (d) record the empirical evidence (how did people actually behave when you blushed). Doing mini-experiments like this is supposed to provide evidence that challenges your entrenched negative/irrational thoughts, and thus allow you to have a different (more positive, rational) perspective on those situations you previously were anxious about (e.g., blushing in public).

There's more to it, but that's my understanding of the basics of CBT.


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## MissSA (Jun 17, 2009)

socially inept said:


> all i can say to that is try it and if it doesnt work then you can conclude that it is BS.
> 
> you risk nothing trying it, i doesnt cost you a penny cos you can do t yourself .
> 
> i can give you the instructions, in this thread, to do a parts intergration on yourself


I'd like some instructions! Feel free to send me a pm.


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## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

MissSA said:


> I'd like some instructions! Feel free to send me a pm.


ill if i can pos them in this actual thread sometime thi week, its pretty straight forward


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## StimulateYourBrain (Nov 20, 2011)

socially inept said:


> all i can say to that is try it and if it doesnt work then you can conclude that it is BS.
> 
> you risk nothing trying it, i doesnt cost you a penny cos you can do t yourself .
> 
> i can give you the instructions, in this thread, to do a parts intergration on yourself


what kind of nlp do you suggest?


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