# Psychoanalysis vs. CBT



## ThomP (Dec 24, 2007)

Hi all,

I've been doing therapy against SA for 15 weeks now, currently doing psychoanalysis (it was the only therapy available at the time I started). However, I don't see anything happening. Basically, it's a group therapy, and everyone just talks about the problem. I have talked my SA to death with friends and family already, I know that the whole thing is irrational anyway, so I don't think that talking will help me.

So I'm considering doing CBT now (still have to find a therapist for that in town).

Anybody here had similar experiences (i.e. psychoanalysis doesn't work, changed from psychoanalysis to CBT) ?


- Thom


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## Lisa (Jul 8, 2006)

Analysis worked for me but it takes a long time. A few weeks is nothing. Speak to your therapist about this I would say.


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## Gerard (Feb 3, 2004)

Never tried it but read extensively about it. Very effective for it gets in touches with your shadow. CBT doesn't that well but can be effective if done in the right way.

Gerard


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## Sierpinski (Jun 17, 2012)

Lisa said:


> Analysis worked for me but it takes a long time. A few weeks is nothing. Speak to your therapist about this I would say.


Analysis cured you of social anxiety? Or it significantly relieved symptoms? How long did this take? How many times a week were you seeing your analyst?


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## jonny neurotic (Jan 20, 2011)

It all depends on the therapist I would say. CBT is useful for getting out of bad habits but ultimately you have to understand why you are the way you are if you have really serious problems. I am my own therapist and prescribe treatments as I see fit. I recently realised that a lot of the problems in my family were because my Grandfather on my Mum's side is seriously narcissistic: I would say he has a personality disorder, and although I am fairly sure that my SA stems from a genetic predisposition_(which I believe I inherited from my Dad)_ it has been impacted pretty seriously by the poison this man has fed us all our lives. I have managed to realise this and I feel like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I am starting to help my Mum realise how he effects her and she is becoming more alive too.

You have to find your own path and to do this you must educate yourself. There is good information on Wikipedia regarding psychology and personality disorders and provided you are stoic in your approach you will get to where you need to be. By stoic I mean not allowing sentiments to get in the way of making the decisions you need to make and allowing yourself to draw whatever conclusions you must regardless of how stark they are...


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## Luctor (Aug 10, 2012)

I've been in psychoanalytic therapy for 3 years. The nature of psychoanalysis means that I always spoke about my issues in terms of circumstances and how they related to developmental factors. What happened was, in always analysing my life for some sort of external trigger to my mood fluctuations, my therapist (PhD, former university lecturer) completely missed the fact that I was bipolar. 

Essentially, I was searching for reasons for my depressive phases, and simply put, if you look hard enough, you'll find it. (It was only after seeing a psychiatrist that I was correctly diagnosed).

That said, if diagnosis isn't your concern, or you already have a diagnosis, psychoanalytic therapy can help. But in all honesty, CBT will give you faster results and the tools to implement outside of therapy. 

If your life has and is still filled with confusing emotions and hurt, having a therapist you can simply talk to and share with is excellent. You can't always discuss the weird stuff that goes on in your mind with friends or family.


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## Johnsonss (Oct 8, 2012)

It is the closest thing to analysis that exists today I believe that actually works. Of course, the key element is your relationship with your therapist. If you have found one you like why not try it?..


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## Monroee (Aug 26, 2009)

I went to a psychoanalyst for almost a year. I saw no improvement, unfortunately. We constantly talked of the past and trying to connect it to why I'm like how I am now. There isn't much that happened in my past to talk about. But he insisted on re-hashing the same topics over and over. It got absolutely nowhere. He also insisted on focusing on my father (daddy issues) and assumed repressed sexuality. I would tell him of subjects that I'd rather talk about, due to me _knowing_ that they are more important, but he insisted on talking about my father when there was nothing to talk about. His views on repressed sexuality reeked of offensive opinions about women. It seemed like he just walked out of the Freud Factory.

I'm assuming that half of the problem was due to the therapist himself, despite him having superior degrees in psychoanalysis. But I did find that talking about the past only and analyzing it, got me absolutely nowhere. I understand myself very well and had already connected everything - so the therapy was rather irrelevant to me. I'd recommend it to people that haven't analyzed themselves yet.


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## FormerOptimist (Feb 15, 2013)

Psychoanalysis goes back to the time of Freud. It is a very old, very time-consuming therapy. It is seldom ever used in the U.S. because it is not affordable -- results, if any, takes years to achieve.

Some mental disorders are simply biological or genetic in origin and will not respond to psychoanalysis which assumes that your mental state is solely due to external factors (relationships, family, school, environment, etc.).


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