# Does CBT mean being a push over???



## ~AJ~ (Jan 23, 2008)

Does doing CBT mean I cant get angry at anyone?? like i have to be positive all the time??

what if I need to express my disappointment with someone?? Some people just dont change till you get pissed at them. But Im being negative when i get angry, so does it hurt the therapy?


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## ardrum (May 13, 2007)

CBT doesn't make you positive or negative. If someone is punching me in the face and telling me they're going to kill me, it's perfectly rational to consider this to be a threat and feel anger/fear in response. CBT will just have you evaluate the evidence rationally to determine if those feelings you do feel (they're not denied or invalidated) are based on accurate thoughts. My feelings are dramatically different if I think that someone can be trusted vs. someone cannot be trusted for example. Without looking at the thoughts, I'm stuck on whatever feeling comes to me regardless of how accurate the thoughts are. If I can identify and evaluate the thoughts though, I might be able to determine if they are accurate (confirming the belief) or less accurate (weakening the belief). 

There's no predetermined plan though. Sometimes fears are indeed based on reasonable and rational beliefs. Feelings are not the enemy of CBT. They're actually helpful for CBT.

Try not to think of CBT in the context of thinking positive vs. thinking negative is what I'm trying to get at (sorry for this sloppy writing). The emphasis is on realism rather than those mental filters of positivity and negativity.


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## FairleighCalm (May 20, 2007)

If you learn to be assertive with people, have conversations instead of confrontations, then you won't have to get all pissy with them. Most of the time. . .


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## emeraldoceans (Sep 13, 2006)

CBT really has nothing to do with mood, its more about being rational with the situation you are dealing with. If you need to express your dissapointment in somebody then the act of CBT actually encourages that, so long as you do it in an assertive way and not an aggressive one. CBT is all about getting "real" with yourself so in no way should you feel you need to be positive all the time, thats not the way the real world works. Assertiveness has its many advantages especially for pple dealing with SA, we often feel like we are not being heard and if we can do this in an assertive manner we can get our point across and therefore feel better about ourselves. Assertiveness training is a big part of CBT.


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

AJ - go and buy "Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy". It will answer all your questions on CBT for 8 dollars.


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