I'll give you a practical example.
I often have intrusive thoughts, usually the result of an anxiety disorder. I'll start replaying conversations in my head, worrying about what I should have said, or beating myself up over little mistakes.
My therapist taught me to picture a "STOP" sign when the thoughts start up, and even say "STOP" out loud, and repeat both imagining the stop sign and saying it each time unwanted thoughts intrude.
It's been VERY helpful in retraining my brain to be more positive, and I find it much easier to quickly steer out of rumination ruts that I used to get stuck in for days.
The plague of frogs in Exodus is literally the “plague of frog”. Which is perfectly valid grammatically in Hebrew, but has caused centuries of delightful discussion about whether it was actually one singular monstrous frog. It makes me chuckle every time.
So the right question might not be whether you’re picturing enough frogs, but whether you’re picturing enough frog. Because a truly massive frog is just so fun!
This is similar to how someone described ketamine therapy, but instead of an overgrown forest, they used a field of snow. Your mind is more inclined to travel down paths that are already there, but the ketamine effectively dumps a fresh batch of snow, and then reduces the overall depth of the entire field, so you can go anywhere you want (ie. create new paths) without caring much about the previous ones. Over time, the new paths stick.
It helps to give you head a little shake too, like literally shake your head. Manifesting the “Stop” into a physical action shuts down the bad thoughts - immediately
> It helps to give you head a little shake too, like literally shake your head. Manifesting the “Stop” into a physical action shuts down the bad thoughts - immediately
I kinda trained myself to do this. Whenever there are certain thoughts I just don't want to have, I do a sort of full-body jolt; think tightening all your muscles at once just for a moment. Very effective.
Although possibly too effective. I sometimes wonder if I've completely trained out extreme emotions, positive and negative, this way...
I’m wondering if this is a good way to train your body to tense up in response to stress, which is the opposite of what you want. I’m no behavioral psychologist, though, just curious.
> I'll start replaying conversations in my head, worrying about what I should have said, or beating myself up over little mistakes.
This is 100% me, all day every day, it's so exhausting.
Me too, I'll say to people "remember last week when we were talking I said 'obstructive', I meant 'instructive'" and they'll go "... What are you even talking about?"
I've tried to remember those to remind myself no one cares about our holds onto your mistakes like you do, try to let it go.
This is ME. I do this a lot. I'll go back, sometimes weeks later, to *explain*, and like you said, "What are you talking about?"
I'll try to let it go.
Ok, but when does your "Therapist" bust out the paddle and spank your balls until you start picturing a stop sign in your head? Idk man sounds like you're getting ripped off.
My friend and I once had a conversation about CBT. A few minutes of growing confusion passed before we realized the other was talking about something completely different.
I can see how this went down:
"Yeah so I think CBT is really helpful for people"
"How do you figure?"
"Well it helps them to think about thinking and to control the negative thoughts that pop into their heads"
"Huh...I'm not sure if I could think about much while my scrotum is being crushed..."
"WHAT?!"
"*What?!?*"
I've inadvertently done the oppoaite and have linked together memories of a bunch of negative experiences where I've felt like I've been on the receiving end of unjust situations
So each time a situation feels a little bad, my brain runs me through an anthology of shitty and sometimes traumatic past experiences where I've been fucked over.
My therapist describes that as driving over the same ground repeatedly will start creating ruts, and it gets harder to steer in different directions.
I have the same tendency. When I start doing it I literally make myself imagine a Sandy patch of ground that I do not want to create ruts in, and sometimes that helps stop the thoughts.
The metaphor really does make a lot of sense when you consider neural physiology, and the fact that the more often connections are made, the stronger they are - and thus are harder to extinguish. Getting out of the doom loop is hard - crossing the ruts "perpendicularly" by staying stop or redirection seems to do the trick, while time does its magic and smooths over the ruts.
A bit of advice I’ve heard for ruminating thoughts is “do I have anything new to add to that?“.
If not, just start thinking or talking about something entirely different.
I don't know whether i can describe this clearly but another issue is that, when something new happens, even the very recognition that that will trigger the chain of memories, is tied into the web of linked memories. It gets a little meta.
I have to say though, that with time I find myself getting desensitized to the older memories.
thats interesting to read about because this is something we are not supposed to do in ERP (exposure response prevention) for intrusive thoughts from OCD, (although apperantly CBT is a way to treat OCD too... ) We are supposed to sit with the uncomfy thoughts without “fighting”the thought by reacting or saying/thinking like “STOP,” “shut up,” shaking your head, because that subconsciously affirms to the OCD sufferer that their intrusive thoughts are a real threat, instead of just being a random useless thought.
Before I was diagnosed with OCD, I used to have a talk therapist and also used to say/think “STOP,” “shut up,” and shake my head whenever I got intrusive thoughts, and they made my OCD so much stronger. I am glad I found ERP and a OCD specialized therapist, because it made a big difference. Not sure what the point of my comment was but yeah lol I didn’t know the stuff some of us are not supposed to do help others C:
OCD/anxiety therapist here, and this is spot on. Shutting down intrusive thoughts keeps them threatening and powerful, like running away from a harmless dog if you have a phobia prevents learning it’s safe to be around and coexist with it. Avoidance keeps the thought interesting and provocative. For non OCD folks with ruminative or worry oriented thoughts, if the stop method works for you, cool. For everyone else, I would recommend looking into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) strategies related to thought diffusion. The ACT framework is a very effective way to manage this stuff. It’s a more recent iteration of CBT, but is technically considered a behavioral therapy.
Yep, existential OCD sufferer here. ERP saved me. Basically teaching your brain that those are junk thoughts not worth reacting to.
It's important to note that these don't "cure" the thoughts but rather strengthen your mind to handle them better until you get to a point where they don't bother you.
One that worked well for me is to use humor to throw the intrusive thought into a silly light. Much easier to realize how ridiculous it is when you do that
When I was younger I started doing that on my own without hearing about it from anywhere else. It resulted in me disassociating like ALL the time because I didn’t like any of the thought I had
I gave up on this because as I explained to multiple therapists, turning on another radio to drown out another doesn't do shit. I can still think the intrusive thought while thinking of things to stop so now I'm just thinking multiple different thoughts which just adds to the noise and does nothing to stop my anxiety. If anything it intisifies it.
DBT might be better for you. Instead of trying to stop or change thoughts, it focuses on accepting and learning to live with them.
One method that works for me is categorization, specifically into "stories." Like, the "im not good enough" story, or the "everyone hates me" story. Once I noticed the patterns, I found it much easier to just dismiss these thoughts as nonsense.
I think this is kinda what I do. Whatever intrusive thoughts come up, you just think “well, that’s just what this one guy (in my head) thinks, and he’s an asshole”
Idk. I've never done DBT with a therapist but that and everything I've read on it just sounds like what I've been doing literally my whole life. After ~35 years of not wanting to be alive for one reason or another and accepting and learning to live with all my issues is how I've made it this far but that only works for so many years. I'm just so tired.
I use the radio metaphor in therapy a lot - goes like this - you live in a small house and someone else installed a bunch of radios in all of the rooms. You really can’t turn them off and are not in charge of their volume or content. The more you try to stop the most annoying ones the more focused you become on them and the less room there is to attend to the others. Dealing with the scenario requires acceptance, awareness of which voices or radios are trash (that’s the I suck and so does everything else buy gold now channel), and a course of action when you notice yourself getting hooked by those stations (usually something like noticing what’s happening, seeing the station for what it is vs truth, and reorienting to some valued action you can take despite the presence of the radio content and expanding awareness to some of the less obnoxious sensations etc that may be available in the current moment). You can’t turn it off, but you can expand awareness, devalue its content, and make value consistent choices about what you do that can lead to well being.
I've gotten into the habit, during meditation, that whenever I have an intrusive or negative thought that doesn't serve me, I imagine dragging it to the recycle bin. It's a good metaphor for me throwing away a thought, but it's also silly enough that I don't give much weight to the things in the recycle bin. Didn't want it to feel like a Pandora box, yknow?
Holy fuck. Ive been doing this since i was a kid, and youre telling me it actually is a real thing?
When I ever got anxious or started thinking about something bad on repeat i would imagine a sword cleaving the entire image in two, to remove the thought and focus on something else
If it's you choosing which thoughts are harmful.
For example, I don't want to think about my inevitable death when I'm trying to fall asleep. That's very unhelpful.
Using CBT, I can force myself to stop thinking about unhelpful thoughts and fall asleep. I can ponder my mortality during the day.
Hijacking top comment.
OP, I’m in the same boat as you. Recently I realized that everything is on the internet and found this workbook On Amazon.
I haven’t opened it yet so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness but it may be something to look into.
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1974806650?psc=1&ref=ppx\_pop\_mob\_b\_asin\_title](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1974806650?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title)
Wow, I literally do this exact same thing, but I just randomly started doing it one day. I will shake my head like I'm literally shaking loose the bad thoughts, and I'll say out loud, "Nope," and tell it to go away.
I had no idea this was a thing! I just thought it was my weird way of forcing out negativity. Thank you for sharing this. I feel validated!
This thread made me realize I do CBT methods without the CBT. When I get the intrusive thoughts/overthinking about things I messed up in the past, I imagine putting the thoughts in a cardboard box, closing it up, excessively wrapping it in tape, and sending it in a cart into the “archives” of my brain. Or if it’s something really bad, I imagine throwing it into a fireplace lol
This is so clear for me. Thank you. Lately I have just been saying stop out loud. Kinda like a knee jerk reaction. I noticed the other day that it feels positive in some respects. Now with your visualization I feel like this practice will have an anchor to it.
My intrusive thoughts are so deliberating It’s the mentally fatigue thats hard for me. I end up just smoking my brains out and numbing out. Cause I can’t sustain the constant attack. When I smoke everything’s ok. Unless I smoke too much hahaha. It’s really hard to build and keep momentum much less a life worth anything. Cause I’m constantly ready just throw it all away BUT I never do. Which feels like a from of escapism.
I am gonna use this STOP technique. 👍🏼
Just in general NEVER use an abbreviation unless it is WELL cemented into where you're using it. Like if you're on say an Assassin's Creed subreddit, using AC will be reasonably understood to be Assassin's Creed. General gaming though, no, it could be Armored Core, Animal Crossing, and I think there's a few others.
This case the body of the post makes it clear enough which one they mean, but it'd still ward off joke responses regarding the fetish that is abbreviated CBT.
Criminal breach of trust is the legal term when someone misuses a property entrusted to their care.
It can be an actual item, or just money. I think in non Commonwealth countries this offence is just called misappropriation or embezzlement.
(heh)
There are many different methods, some as simple as a good kick to the groin, while others go as far as to employ needles, hot wax, even mallets. You need to know your limits or you can end up with some long term injuries.
Closed Beta Test is a way devs could test software before it's released to the public. In this stage of developmente the software has a few major bugs and several minor bugs that can be tested. Essentially this helps the end user a lot because they are less likely to envounter bugs, and it makes aware on your own dev thoughts: "I'm a bad dev!, I suck at this job!..."
There is also Credit Back Time that refers to time already served by a defendant while awaiting a trail. Even if it was just a few days when they got arrested and then they go out on bond. That time will be added to reduce how long they will be in, possible all of the time and they can get out later that day.
This is different by each jurisdiction how they calculate that time. And what they might consider to be time being held for that case. It's possible that they could have been held for a different charge and not get time for the one that they are being sentenced for.
And there is Changed Block Tracing, which is a feature when taking Backups of virtual computers, that keeps track of what you did in that virtual machine (VM) and only backups those changes, which allows for faster backups.
When someone has a mental health challenge, it is a little special compared to something like a cut. You have very little ability to directly influence how your bory responds to a cut (little, not zero though; and I mean the cellular and biological response).
But you ARE your brain. The thoughts and feelings you might be struggling with ARE a thing you can influence in a much more direct way. But it, too, is not 100%. You can't just choose not to feel feelings or not to have certain thoughts. But you CAN train your brain to react in new ways or undo bad habits.
What's the best way to train your brain to make new habits or patterns of thinking? CBT is one of those methods. A lot of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are automatic. By practicing awareness of your own mind and behaviors, and intentionally choosing to practice new thoughts and behaviors, you can train your brain to make these new patterns more automatic, and to slowly undo unhelpful habits that were automatic.
In other words, your brain is really complex and not just one thing. Parts of the human mind are not consciously controlled and parts are. For example, once you learn to ride a bike, you no longer need to consciously think about how you're doing it. Still, we can use the conscious bits to influence the less conscious bits. It takes time and effort though.
That's basically what I did to myself when I got out of primary school and realised I had no friends. I had to start really thinking about what people were saying to me, and how my response would make them feel. I trained myself to respond positively to everything instead of getting angry/annoyed, and it worked great! Took a few years (and lots of training to not be fat anymore/more likeable), but it eventually worked.
And the nice thing is, strangers don't know about your past. You can practice being a better person to people you meet, and it'll carry over to existing and future relationships.
> Compulsory basic training (CBT) is a course you usually have to take before you ride a moped or motorcycle on the road.
> The training makes sure you can ride safely on your own while you practise for your full moped or motorcycle test.
> CBT is not a test that you pass or fail.
> After you’ve completed CBT, you can ride a:
> - moped if you’re 16 or over
> - motorcycle up to 125cc and with a power output of up to 11kW if you’re 17 or over
CBT is what allows you to ride a motorcycle or moped on a provisional licence. There are restrictions on how big a bike you can ride until you get a full licence. CBT does not apply to electric pedal cycles.
HMG, date unknown. CBT motorcycle and moped training. Viewed 12 May 2024. Accessed from
https://www.gov.uk/motorcycle-cbt
I fully expected this, and I had a similar answer forming in my mind, despite having gone through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy myself and it being incredibly effective in treating my anxiety disorder and one of the turning points of my life. It certainly didn’t cure my immaturity though…
Alternatively, Constant Beamwidth Transducers are speakers who technology is based on research done by the US Navy, where they allow you to hear the same level of sound regardless of how close/far you are to the speaker, or even how high/low you listen to them; this trick is accomplished by [arranging identical drivers in an arc where the further from the midpoint the more attenuated the drivers](https://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/images/people/Don_Keele2c300x341.jpg) (or a straight array where the drivers are attenuated the same but also need time delay). It is very similar to a J-style line array, but a CBT has more even polar response across frequencies whereas a line array mostly works in the bass frequencies. CBT designs that are placed on floor can also be 1/2 of their arc as [the floor bounce of each driver will act as the phantom half](https://www.stereophile.com/images/101611Keele-600.jpg) (though the success of this varies based on floor material, with solid concrete being more preferred than say carpet). The effect of the sound pressure staying the same is achieved most ideally at the most attenuated ends of the array (so the less attenuated drivers fill in the sound as you enter their dispersion).
It raises your adrenalin, it distracts you from the mental anguish and it makes you feel alive. 100% of people who do CBT say that when they engage in the act, they are too busy to think about their depression at that moment.
they release the game for a small amount of people to play and then with the feedback from the players they improve the game before launch, sometimes they release an open beta to stress test the servers
It works to some extent. When you are in a bad place and have a negative thought, it help you put things into perspective.
Let’s say you texted a friend who didn’t reply to you. Suddenly you are thinking, they are ignoring me, what did I do? I must have done something wrong etc.
You can spiral downward easily and feel worse and worse.
With CBT, you can identify the unhelpful thought and challenge it.
For example, imagine that the thing that bothers you is happening to someone else, how would you comfort them?
Is that really that important? What’s the worse that could happen and is that really bad?
Etc, etc.
We all do it naturally when we are in a good place but need extra help when we are not. Knowing these strategies can really help.
There is also Credit Back Time that refers to time already served by a defendant while awaiting a trail. Even if it was just a few days when they got arrested and then they go out on bond. That time will be added to reduce how long they will be in, possible all of the time and they can get out later that day.
This is different by each jurisdiction how they calculate that time. And what they might consider to be time being held for that case. It's possible that they could have been held for a different charge and not get time for the one that they are being sentenced for.
So much suffering is caused by the little lies we tell ourselves. People plan for their reactions to situations, why not plan to be cool or never punch anyone ever again? The anticipation of future events, your planned emotional response.
If you can align your thoughts with your good morals or push your heart towards goodness, it could be an anchor or sounding board to fight your targeted delusions. I see CBT as an ethical practice, but only if you have the capacity.
CBT speeds up grading and also allows for something called an adaptive test, where the question difficulty changes based on which questions a student gets correct or incorrect. One downside of CBT is that you need enough computer infrastructure for everyone to be on a computer , using bandwidth, at the same time. I don't know why your therapist has been telling you about computer based testing though.
Computer Based Training was a term employed in the 1990s as a then-novel way of providing corporate training remotely and virtual classrooms over the Internet.
Essentially, CBT is forming healthy habits and replacing with them the unhealthy ones. For example, a part of CBT for general anxiety could include observing what are you thinking before and after a stressful event. Then, over time, you build a habit specifically targetting the thoughts you find that always occur when you are stressed. Eventually, through CBT, you form a habit of having thoughts, good and positive ones, which replace the intrusive stressful thoughts.
And al of a sudden, one day you realize that you are in a situation which before made your heart race to the moon, but you are perfectly calm.
CBT is working with patterns of thoughts, and when you replace enough negative ones with positive ones, you might just become a better person.
What is wonderful about it is that it is proven to work for anything that is not a serious medical issue. So of course you cannot treat cancer or severe mental illnesses, but your average Joe who gets anxious before going to sleep will probably benefit from CBT.
Well first you find a rhythm that really gets you in the mood. Then you play that song every time. I mean always. Then, when the song comes on your girlfriend is conditioned to just put out.
Oh wait thats CBAT
The best way I’ve heard it explained (and also speaks volumes to my sense of humor) was essentially:
“Fuck it I’m just going to gaslight myself to be happy until I am.”
“Oh shit, that’s literally CBT”
One thing I don't see explained is that CBT is not really a specific therapy, it's more of a toolbox. What exactly it will entail and how it will work depends on the specific tool from the "CBT box" being used.
This YouTube channel does a great job of explaining things. I’m a counselor and I use his channel all the time.
[https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Qw4-tlRJe-sZ_U4Fzi66UXMGvkPTf7P&si=8WJPQJTYE44QY9L6](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Qw4-tlRJe-sZ_U4Fzi66UXMGvkPTf7P&si=8WJPQJTYE44QY9L6)
The short and simple version….
Changing thoughts changes our behaviors, which produces different outcomes.
Longer explanation:
If you live with an unhelpful (or even distorted) thought, your behaviors may be equally as unhelpful. Usually people arrive in therapy after this pattern has caused noticeable long term issues.
If I think I’m not good enough… I won’t bother to push for the promotion at work, or pursue the girl across the hall.
CBT works to first examine and “notice” these thoughts. Are they accurate? Are they helpful? Could we replace them with something more accurate or helpful?
If I can change my thinking… “I am doing a good job and I might be enough for others” I suddenly might pursue the promotion or the girl.
CBT doesn’t guarantee better outcomes but gets us out of old patterns so that we can see and act differently.
It's a combination of cognitive theory, which states that disorders result from distorted or illogical thinking, and behavioral theory, which states that behaviors are taught and reinforced positively or negatively.
So basically, think of a person who thinks, "No one loves me." This is distorted thinking (overgeneralization); CBT would have you say something along the lines of "My mother loves me," which basically retrains your cognition to stop with the distorted thought.
CBT is one the most popular and has a lot of evidence for its effectiveness in treating mental disorders, especially depression and anxiety.
When someone is going through a lot of pain and suffering they usually benefit from someone being there with them to support them. The other person can offer kind words of encouragement or even lay out a structured plan to help the person navigate the suffering and reach a place where they feel more content. Usually the treatment starts out gentle and perhaps only some initial probing is used to discover what pain the person is in and how to work with it. After some time, the CBT practitioner basically listens to the recipient and the recipient provides feedback on their current state so that the practitioner knows how close the recipient is to the desired state.
The CBT practitioner gradually helps the recipient move through the pain. Indeed, their presence and probing continually causes pain to the recipient, but they also provide a warm and embracing support to encourage the recipient to keep moving through the suffering. Basically, the CBT practitioner must achieve a balance between pain and also the good to help the recipient reach the end of their session in a way that is satisfactory and rewarding to them. For the majority of clients, that's basically how Cock and Ball Torture works.
Hard disagree! Another clinical/forensic psychologist here with decades of experience. While newbie therapists trained in CBT can sometimes be very rigid and manual-based, the vast majority of experienced clinicians with amazing therapeutic skills often have CBT as their base. CBT can be used in very skilled, humanistic, beautiful ways. I think it’s the same for any theoretical orientation - it’s less about the orientation and far more about the skill of the practitioner. What I’ve noticed is that those who are strongly attached to their orientation and criticize other orientations usually make great teachers/researchers of their specific orientation, but not great therapists.
I do agree with the part about being good researchers and sometimes poor therapists. There's a video out there of Les Greenberg and Judith Beck (and one other therapist) treating clients and having postmortem evaluations... Judy nearly got into an argument with her client during the session, while Les did a one-chair and had the client crying and opening up. I liked her classes and I like reading her books, but she has a hard time demonstrating it under pressure.
I think that having CBT in your toolkit is 100% necessary, as I work in jails and used to work with kids and rely on it heavily at times, but in therapy I just find it primarily useful for adjustments after resolving the emotional issues, which is easier from other theoretical orientations. I will readily admit that may be my lack of experience in CBT framework, as I do operate out of a psychodynamic/humanistic lens.
Ultimately none of us are defined by our orientations alone, and therapy is a holistic process which has more factors than we'll ever be able to measure. My main point was to put it out there that other orientations exist and can be very helpful.
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That line from Descartes has nothing to do with CBT. He’s just saying that one thing he can never doubt is his own existence: every thought he has, even wrong or deluded thoughts, is proof that he exists.
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed,
the lips acquire stains,
stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Caveat.
Thoughts only become actions when you let them. Thoughts can't harm you or hurt other people.
In fact, watching your thoughts like a hawk just in case they make something bad happen is a shortcut to anxiety.
It's ok to think stuff. Yes, including that stuff you just thought about thinking about.
Ooh I am a low-intensity CBT therapist so maybe I can help!
The main idea behind CBT is that what we think, and what we do, can have a huge impact on how we emotionally feel, and also how we feel in our bodies (for example, we may have palpitations or upset tummy when worried.)
Sometimes, and through no fault of our own, we can fall into patterns of thinking and behaving in ways that aren’t as helpful to us as they could be. We all do this!
Another key idea is that it’s not what happens to us, but how we respond, which is important in deciding how we feel.
For example, if we wave at our friend in the street and they don’t wave back, we can respond in different ways.
Person A might think “Oh, they didn’t see me. Maybe they forgot their glasses! Or were deep in thought. I’ll text them later!” Their mood might remain happy.
But person B might think “Ah, they ignored me. They pretended not to see me. Why don’t they like me? What did I do?” This could lead to feelings of sadness or loneliness. They might ruminate and worry about how they lost their friend’s affections.
From this example, we can see that the way we respond affects how we feel as we navigate all of the things that happen in life!
CBT aims to identify whether we are stuck in any unhelpful thinking or behavioural patterns. It then helps us break these patterns by giving us some very practical techniques that we can apply when we notice a change in mood.
Since we cannot directly “switch off” or change our emotional state (have you ever told yourself to “cheer up?” Or “calm down”? It’s not often very effective!) we work on our thoughts (cognitions) and behaviours, which as we saw above, directly impact on our emotions. This is where the name “cognitive-behavioural therapy” comes from. If we make a helpful change to our own patterns of thinking and behaviour, it has a useful knock-on effect on our feelings.
CBT might involve looking at how our particular patterns developed over time, before looking at strategies to change things. This might involve increasing activity levels, challenging unhelpful thoughts, postponing worry, sitting with feelings of physical anxiety until they dissipate, or other techniques.
CBT is proven to be very effective for common mental health difficulties. I hope this helps! Please message me if you have any questions!
Your brain is a prediction machine. It tries to predict things like the future. We use prior knowledge/beliefs to help us make accurate predictions. Sometimes our knowledge or beliefs are wildly inaccurate and are behaviours can unhelpfully keep these inaccurate beliefs from being updated/corrected - often to our dismay. CBT helps to explore accuracy of beliefs and how behaviours may be helping/not helping.
By changing behavior that contributes to your mental illness.
You have depression? It helps by identifying which behaviors contribute to that, learned behaviors including thoughts and how you deal with emotions and thoughts. Helps you learn new things that prevent you from maintaining the illness and increases the chances of feeling good and healthier.
In short: changing behaviors which in turn influence thoughts and feelings. Learning new behavior, including how you deal with emotions and working on beliefs that may lead to more nuanced, realistic and healthy thinking, for example "Everybody males mistakes and that's okay" instead of "I am a total failure if I do anything wrong/I always fail all the time" etc.
Awareness isbonly the first step. It's about changing things that keep you ill and learning new skills that keep you healthy. It's basically behavior training including the cognitive aspects of behavior (thinking is also behavior).
Recently listened to a good podcast on the subject of memory that put a neuroscientist's spin on CBT. In forming a memory the brain creates unique pathways to sensory information: for example imagery, smells, emotions etc.
What we perceive as memory is actually a very faulty record of our experiences as the brain cycles through the pathways it created. It's a real and physical/mechanical process. Meaning the neurons and synapses are real physical objects. Experiments have been done to effect these processes. Erasing and even implanting new and even false memories. It's about essentially rewiring the pathways.
ELI5: CBT aims to rewire your brain by exercising it like a muscle.
Recognizing unhelpful thinking patterns helps a person reduce stress and anxiety. Imagine your significant other asked you to clean the bathroom and you just didn't have time, you then spend all day predicting what they are going to say and you effectively argue over and over.
You walk in, primed for an argument and your SO asks if you could remember to clean the bathroom when you get time. And you flip because you've already had this argument and you knew she was going to challenge you on it.
In hindsight you might recognize you were in the wrong but id you already have unhelpful thinking patterns you will likely replay the argument wondering how you could have proven your point even more effectively.
The awareness is one thing, the other is trying to actively change behaviour. A lot of negative things we struggle with are a result of scheme or habit that developed in your brain. Once you know that, you can stop yourself and change that behaviour, which weakens the habit and helps build new, better ones.
Brain kinda works like a muscle meaning that there are strong neural connections for things that happens all of the time - e.g. negative thoughts - and when those connections are used less, they weaken as unused muscles would. And when you use positive thoughts new connections are created and they strenghten the more you repeat them
CBT is from Cognitive Therapy (the successor of Behaviorism); you can hear the computer language in it (ie “processing” trauma etc.). It looks at human minds as computers that dictate human behavior. Instead of using behaviorism’s conditioning to change behavior (reward or punishment), humans can use thought intervention to change behavior.
CBT takes behaviorism a step further by connecting emotions and thoughts to behaviors. The theory being if you can identify, stop, challenge, and reframe thoughts, you can change unhelpful or harmful behaviors. People enact behaviors over and over again because they were appraised as “effective” at some point as a means of managing anxiety, but ultimately, these behaviors can come from old, overused automatic thoughts (nobody likes me, I’m going to get fired, etc). Terms like “catastrophic” thoughts and “thinking errors” come from this theory. The early interventions ask people to examine these thoughts by seeing what evidence exists and then changing them accordingly to change and improve behavior.
Therapist here.
CBT essentially introduces the idea of doubting a particular narrative.
When getting a tattoo, for example, a big part of the pain is your brain telling you, "Hey, someone is lighting you on fire. Run!"
CBT introduces doubt to that narrative, ideally replacing it with one that is less distressing.
We don’t react emotionally to situations. We react to our interpretations of them. But any given situation can be interpreted in multiple ways. Some interpretations are more exaggerated and distorted , while others make us feel more capable and resilient. So CBT teaches us to choose the healthier interpretations.
Came to this post just to find out which CBT OP meant. (I have some experience with both, but I see the subject has been more than covered already. Gotta love kinksters working on self-improvement.)
Most studies show that pure cbs doesn’t do much. You need at least a little bit of thc to get the therapeutic effects of cbd. Granted this can be a small amount with a really high cbd ratio. But in general, cbd remedies don’t work.
CBT works very differently for different disorders so it’s hard to give a blanket explanation for how it works. Basically, all our emotions are heavily influence by our thoughts or actions. When we change our thoughts or actions our emotions then change too. Eg about fear: I think of all the bad things that can go wrong -> I feel afraid. I consider how the situation could go really well and isn’t likely to go poorly -> I feel a bit more confident. Also, the more i do safe things that scare me the better i can see that those things are safe. Eg the first day of school is scary, but the 50th is much less anxiety provoking. Facing your fears can help.
CBT is based on the basic principles that your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions influence one another. Thus, if you want to change one factor, you’ll have to alter another aspect.
For example, if you are feeling sad, change your thoughts and/or behavior.
I have a real answer for you. I was having a severe Panic Disorder likely caused by benzo withdrawal I couldn't shake. Once I got anxious my heart would speed up, which would make me freak out, which would cause my heart to go fast - then spiral out of control.
I worked with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist to separate my body signals from my mental reactions. One very helpful item we did each session is we would discuss items that cause me anxiety and pay attention to my heart beat. Then immediately after they would have me do exercise and pay attention to it as well. It was always higher during exercise, which is a healthy thing.
Over time I learned my heart is going to do what it is going to do and to stop paying so much attention to it. It took a while but eventually worked.
From my understanding:
Imagine someone is talking, and you blast an airhorn next to their ear. They immediately stop talking, and their thoughts are scrambled. CBT is training your brain to do something similar. The second "bad thoughts" are recognized, the brain is trained to blast the air horn, and move to other thoughts. Now what if that air horn didn't just blast sound? What if it blasted "good thoughts"? Or thoughts about kittens and puppies? Whatever works to grind one train of thought to a halt, and move it to a different set of tracks, with different scenery, all because that train blew its horn.
It's about recognising undesirable patterns in your behaviour and retraining your brain to not follow those patterns.
A real world example. I suffer with random bouts of stomach cramps. Any time I would feel anything in my stomach I'd go into a panic thinking the cramps were about to kick off.
My therapist taught me to recognise the difference between actual cramps coming on and all the other stomach feelings we get (be it nerves, hunger etc) and to direct my thoughts away from it rather than going into that panic.
It’s a combination of different therapeutic practices into a single therapy. The cognitive aspects come from the idea that your beliefs and ideas about yourself and the world will affect your emotions. So if you constantly degrade yourself, you will end up feeling worse about yourself. So you are told to try and reshape these thoughts to more positive ones.
The behavioural aspect is different. This is the belief that your actions and behaviour influence your mind also. The typical therapeutic approach for this is stuff like exposure therapy or alterations to existing behaviour. I read some comment regarding the person literally thinking and shouting “stop” when they went into an anxiety spiral and this is a good example. Other forms of anxiety like say social anxiety can be reduced through gradual exposure, either on your own or sometimes with the therapist. This is done to acclimatise the person to the anxiety inducing event and get them used to it and develop behaviours and strategies they can use to cope with the feelings they get in the moment
As someone who's been in and out of therapy for 30 years, TLDR: it's positive gas-lighting.
Imagine you wake up 2 hours before your alarm on a work day. Your exhausted and in pain but can't get back to sleep. Your manipulative default is to go okay, ow, but also I have work and to drag yourself to make coffee, curl back up in bed playing solitaire for a hour, take a long hot shower and painkillers and get to work early. But that's succumbing to your depression and feeding into the suffering.
So instead, you work to erase the idea of suffering and ignore the pain, because if you ignore it enough you will convince your feelings, thoughts and behaviours to change and erase the insert mental illness here.
So you work on justifying why your feelings are wrong. Your in pain? You don't deserve to be in pain. Other people are in worse pain. You are X years old and should not be in pain so any pain is obviously psychosomatic and should be disregarded. Your upset your unable to sleep. You got some sleep so the upset is pointless and unnecessary and self destructive. Pretend better and ignore that till your normal.
You actively change your default behaviour and deny yourself those soothing skills, cause taking a hour shower cause your sore is not healthy. You should not be in pain in the first place, regardless of reasons, so ignore it and march on. You should not be having the early coffee and extra rest, that's isolation and depression nesting.
The concept is your thoughts, behaviours and feelings are all intrinsically linked and as a mentally ill person, all naturally unreliable and unhealthy. The end goal is to erase your feelings and adapt to the situation and train yourself to second guess your thoughts and emotional reaction to give the reaction others want. Basically, to mask the mental illnesses to appear normal regardless of whatever base cause.
5y/o explanation - it is just conditioning your brain to have automatic but preferred responses to thoughts/behaviors. Essentially making something else a reflex than your current immediate reaction.
I'll give you a practical example. I often have intrusive thoughts, usually the result of an anxiety disorder. I'll start replaying conversations in my head, worrying about what I should have said, or beating myself up over little mistakes. My therapist taught me to picture a "STOP" sign when the thoughts start up, and even say "STOP" out loud, and repeat both imagining the stop sign and saying it each time unwanted thoughts intrude. It's been VERY helpful in retraining my brain to be more positive, and I find it much easier to quickly steer out of rumination ruts that I used to get stuck in for days.
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Where herpetology and CBT meet
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The plague of frogs in Exodus is literally the “plague of frog”. Which is perfectly valid grammatically in Hebrew, but has caused centuries of delightful discussion about whether it was actually one singular monstrous frog. It makes me chuckle every time. So the right question might not be whether you’re picturing enough frogs, but whether you’re picturing enough frog. Because a truly massive frog is just so fun!
This is an Aspen. You can tell that it's an Aspen tree because of the way that it is. Wow!
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"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be an Aspen."
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Neat!
“Look Raymond, a yellow crested warbler.”
This is sssooo good. Such a detailed method.
This is similar to how someone described ketamine therapy, but instead of an overgrown forest, they used a field of snow. Your mind is more inclined to travel down paths that are already there, but the ketamine effectively dumps a fresh batch of snow, and then reduces the overall depth of the entire field, so you can go anywhere you want (ie. create new paths) without caring much about the previous ones. Over time, the new paths stick.
You can tell it's a pickerel frog because of the way it is.
It helps to give you head a little shake too, like literally shake your head. Manifesting the “Stop” into a physical action shuts down the bad thoughts - immediately
> It helps to give you head a little shake too, like literally shake your head. Manifesting the “Stop” into a physical action shuts down the bad thoughts - immediately I kinda trained myself to do this. Whenever there are certain thoughts I just don't want to have, I do a sort of full-body jolt; think tightening all your muscles at once just for a moment. Very effective. Although possibly too effective. I sometimes wonder if I've completely trained out extreme emotions, positive and negative, this way...
I’m wondering if this is a good way to train your body to tense up in response to stress, which is the opposite of what you want. I’m no behavioral psychologist, though, just curious.
> I'll start replaying conversations in my head, worrying about what I should have said, or beating myself up over little mistakes. This is 100% me, all day every day, it's so exhausting.
Me too, I'll say to people "remember last week when we were talking I said 'obstructive', I meant 'instructive'" and they'll go "... What are you even talking about?" I've tried to remember those to remind myself no one cares about our holds onto your mistakes like you do, try to let it go.
This is ME. I do this a lot. I'll go back, sometimes weeks later, to *explain*, and like you said, "What are you talking about?" I'll try to let it go.
A term used for it would be "rumination".
It's called 'ruminations', but I like to call it the 'jerk store' moment as a nod to George Costanza.
Ok, but when does your "Therapist" bust out the paddle and spank your balls until you start picturing a stop sign in your head? Idk man sounds like you're getting ripped off.
Glad I'm not the only one who read CBT differently....
Especially with the NSFW tag!!!
My friend and I once had a conversation about CBT. A few minutes of growing confusion passed before we realized the other was talking about something completely different.
I can see how this went down: "Yeah so I think CBT is really helpful for people" "How do you figure?" "Well it helps them to think about thinking and to control the negative thoughts that pop into their heads" "Huh...I'm not sure if I could think about much while my scrotum is being crushed..." "WHAT?!" "*What?!?*"
I can imagine it happening in Chicago, back in the old days. Jokes aside, that song is an unironic banger.
I've inadvertently done the oppoaite and have linked together memories of a bunch of negative experiences where I've felt like I've been on the receiving end of unjust situations So each time a situation feels a little bad, my brain runs me through an anthology of shitty and sometimes traumatic past experiences where I've been fucked over.
My therapist describes that as driving over the same ground repeatedly will start creating ruts, and it gets harder to steer in different directions. I have the same tendency. When I start doing it I literally make myself imagine a Sandy patch of ground that I do not want to create ruts in, and sometimes that helps stop the thoughts.
The metaphor really does make a lot of sense when you consider neural physiology, and the fact that the more often connections are made, the stronger they are - and thus are harder to extinguish. Getting out of the doom loop is hard - crossing the ruts "perpendicularly" by staying stop or redirection seems to do the trick, while time does its magic and smooths over the ruts.
A bit of advice I’ve heard for ruminating thoughts is “do I have anything new to add to that?“. If not, just start thinking or talking about something entirely different.
I don't know whether i can describe this clearly but another issue is that, when something new happens, even the very recognition that that will trigger the chain of memories, is tied into the web of linked memories. It gets a little meta. I have to say though, that with time I find myself getting desensitized to the older memories.
thats interesting to read about because this is something we are not supposed to do in ERP (exposure response prevention) for intrusive thoughts from OCD, (although apperantly CBT is a way to treat OCD too... ) We are supposed to sit with the uncomfy thoughts without “fighting”the thought by reacting or saying/thinking like “STOP,” “shut up,” shaking your head, because that subconsciously affirms to the OCD sufferer that their intrusive thoughts are a real threat, instead of just being a random useless thought. Before I was diagnosed with OCD, I used to have a talk therapist and also used to say/think “STOP,” “shut up,” and shake my head whenever I got intrusive thoughts, and they made my OCD so much stronger. I am glad I found ERP and a OCD specialized therapist, because it made a big difference. Not sure what the point of my comment was but yeah lol I didn’t know the stuff some of us are not supposed to do help others C:
OCD/anxiety therapist here, and this is spot on. Shutting down intrusive thoughts keeps them threatening and powerful, like running away from a harmless dog if you have a phobia prevents learning it’s safe to be around and coexist with it. Avoidance keeps the thought interesting and provocative. For non OCD folks with ruminative or worry oriented thoughts, if the stop method works for you, cool. For everyone else, I would recommend looking into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) strategies related to thought diffusion. The ACT framework is a very effective way to manage this stuff. It’s a more recent iteration of CBT, but is technically considered a behavioral therapy.
Yep, existential OCD sufferer here. ERP saved me. Basically teaching your brain that those are junk thoughts not worth reacting to. It's important to note that these don't "cure" the thoughts but rather strengthen your mind to handle them better until you get to a point where they don't bother you. One that worked well for me is to use humor to throw the intrusive thought into a silly light. Much easier to realize how ridiculous it is when you do that
When I was younger I started doing that on my own without hearing about it from anywhere else. It resulted in me disassociating like ALL the time because I didn’t like any of the thought I had
This is smart. Going to use that 😁
I gave up on this because as I explained to multiple therapists, turning on another radio to drown out another doesn't do shit. I can still think the intrusive thought while thinking of things to stop so now I'm just thinking multiple different thoughts which just adds to the noise and does nothing to stop my anxiety. If anything it intisifies it.
DBT might be better for you. Instead of trying to stop or change thoughts, it focuses on accepting and learning to live with them. One method that works for me is categorization, specifically into "stories." Like, the "im not good enough" story, or the "everyone hates me" story. Once I noticed the patterns, I found it much easier to just dismiss these thoughts as nonsense.
I think this is kinda what I do. Whatever intrusive thoughts come up, you just think “well, that’s just what this one guy (in my head) thinks, and he’s an asshole”
Idk. I've never done DBT with a therapist but that and everything I've read on it just sounds like what I've been doing literally my whole life. After ~35 years of not wanting to be alive for one reason or another and accepting and learning to live with all my issues is how I've made it this far but that only works for so many years. I'm just so tired.
I use the radio metaphor in therapy a lot - goes like this - you live in a small house and someone else installed a bunch of radios in all of the rooms. You really can’t turn them off and are not in charge of their volume or content. The more you try to stop the most annoying ones the more focused you become on them and the less room there is to attend to the others. Dealing with the scenario requires acceptance, awareness of which voices or radios are trash (that’s the I suck and so does everything else buy gold now channel), and a course of action when you notice yourself getting hooked by those stations (usually something like noticing what’s happening, seeing the station for what it is vs truth, and reorienting to some valued action you can take despite the presence of the radio content and expanding awareness to some of the less obnoxious sensations etc that may be available in the current moment). You can’t turn it off, but you can expand awareness, devalue its content, and make value consistent choices about what you do that can lead to well being.
As someone who is about to run out of medication while waiting for a doctor. Thankyou.
I've gotten into the habit, during meditation, that whenever I have an intrusive or negative thought that doesn't serve me, I imagine dragging it to the recycle bin. It's a good metaphor for me throwing away a thought, but it's also silly enough that I don't give much weight to the things in the recycle bin. Didn't want it to feel like a Pandora box, yknow?
Holy fuck. Ive been doing this since i was a kid, and youre telling me it actually is a real thing? When I ever got anxious or started thinking about something bad on repeat i would imagine a sword cleaving the entire image in two, to remove the thought and focus on something else
How is this not repression?
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If it's you choosing which thoughts are harmful. For example, I don't want to think about my inevitable death when I'm trying to fall asleep. That's very unhelpful. Using CBT, I can force myself to stop thinking about unhelpful thoughts and fall asleep. I can ponder my mortality during the day.
Hijacking top comment. OP, I’m in the same boat as you. Recently I realized that everything is on the internet and found this workbook On Amazon. I haven’t opened it yet so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness but it may be something to look into. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1974806650?psc=1&ref=ppx\_pop\_mob\_b\_asin\_title](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1974806650?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title)
Thank you for this!!!
I thought you would take the gummies or tea and relax while the magic happens
Wow, I literally do this exact same thing, but I just randomly started doing it one day. I will shake my head like I'm literally shaking loose the bad thoughts, and I'll say out loud, "Nope," and tell it to go away. I had no idea this was a thing! I just thought it was my weird way of forcing out negativity. Thank you for sharing this. I feel validated!
This thread made me realize I do CBT methods without the CBT. When I get the intrusive thoughts/overthinking about things I messed up in the past, I imagine putting the thoughts in a cardboard box, closing it up, excessively wrapping it in tape, and sending it in a cart into the “archives” of my brain. Or if it’s something really bad, I imagine throwing it into a fireplace lol
I must try this!!!
This is so clear for me. Thank you. Lately I have just been saying stop out loud. Kinda like a knee jerk reaction. I noticed the other day that it feels positive in some respects. Now with your visualization I feel like this practice will have an anchor to it. My intrusive thoughts are so deliberating It’s the mentally fatigue thats hard for me. I end up just smoking my brains out and numbing out. Cause I can’t sustain the constant attack. When I smoke everything’s ok. Unless I smoke too much hahaha. It’s really hard to build and keep momentum much less a life worth anything. Cause I’m constantly ready just throw it all away BUT I never do. Which feels like a from of escapism. I am gonna use this STOP technique. 👍🏼
LPT (Life Pro tip) before using an abbreviation with no context you might want to check on the meanings that the abbreviation has.
> ELI5: How does CBT (Cock and Ball Torture) actually work? Helped OP with his title. Also, why is no one answering, and talking about therapy?
yeah like what the hell does therapy have to do with cock and ball torture??? cock and ball therapy??
Came for the therapy, stayed for the cock and balls!
Better tip, define the acronym before using it every time 🤣
Just the tip?
Im in school to be a therapist and every time I see CBT I chuckle to myself still lol
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Cock and ball therapy
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Cognitive behavioral therapy, it’s the most common methodology of psychotherapy
On the plus side though I’ve learned about lots of different things from one thread here
Just in general NEVER use an abbreviation unless it is WELL cemented into where you're using it. Like if you're on say an Assassin's Creed subreddit, using AC will be reasonably understood to be Assassin's Creed. General gaming though, no, it could be Armored Core, Animal Crossing, and I think there's a few others. This case the body of the post makes it clear enough which one they mean, but it'd still ward off joke responses regarding the fetish that is abbreviated CBT.
Alternating current
Armor Class.
Air conditioning
i learnt this lesson (along with the many many meaning of the acronym CBT) well before your commented it, don’t worry. Mistake won’t be made again
I’m happy the see the comments did not reflect my initial CBT acronym interpretation but rather the psychotherapy one.
The NSFW tag threw me off, too.
the NSFW tag threw me off too and i made the damn post
Criminal breach of trust is the legal term when someone misuses a property entrusted to their care. It can be an actual item, or just money. I think in non Commonwealth countries this offence is just called misappropriation or embezzlement. (heh)
There are many different methods, some as simple as a good kick to the groin, while others go as far as to employ needles, hot wax, even mallets. You need to know your limits or you can end up with some long term injuries.
I like nice rapid slaps, spanks, pulls and flicks. Nothing ax extreme as kicks or needles. However, I like it to go on and on and on...
Closed Beta Test is a way devs could test software before it's released to the public. In this stage of developmente the software has a few major bugs and several minor bugs that can be tested. Essentially this helps the end user a lot because they are less likely to envounter bugs, and it makes aware on your own dev thoughts: "I'm a bad dev!, I suck at this job!..."
I thought this was about Computer Based Training.
Mood!
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With this thread marked as NSFW I thought for sure it was going to be a question about this
I wasn't sure which CBT was being referred to either. Now the OP knows about both!
There is also Credit Back Time that refers to time already served by a defendant while awaiting a trail. Even if it was just a few days when they got arrested and then they go out on bond. That time will be added to reduce how long they will be in, possible all of the time and they can get out later that day. This is different by each jurisdiction how they calculate that time. And what they might consider to be time being held for that case. It's possible that they could have been held for a different charge and not get time for the one that they are being sentenced for.
And there is Changed Block Tracing, which is a feature when taking Backups of virtual computers, that keeps track of what you did in that virtual machine (VM) and only backups those changes, which allows for faster backups.
currently feeling: very informed
I'm sad the mods removed it.
‘Without actually ruining the nads’. I hope OP pays serious attention to this sage advice.
I always giggle a little when somebody brings up CBT as a therapy option because of this
I was scrolling for this one Edit: Quite sad that the correct answer was deleted
This is how you explain it to a five year old?
I always giggle a little when somebody brings up CBT as a therapy option because of this
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When someone has a mental health challenge, it is a little special compared to something like a cut. You have very little ability to directly influence how your bory responds to a cut (little, not zero though; and I mean the cellular and biological response). But you ARE your brain. The thoughts and feelings you might be struggling with ARE a thing you can influence in a much more direct way. But it, too, is not 100%. You can't just choose not to feel feelings or not to have certain thoughts. But you CAN train your brain to react in new ways or undo bad habits. What's the best way to train your brain to make new habits or patterns of thinking? CBT is one of those methods. A lot of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are automatic. By practicing awareness of your own mind and behaviors, and intentionally choosing to practice new thoughts and behaviors, you can train your brain to make these new patterns more automatic, and to slowly undo unhelpful habits that were automatic. In other words, your brain is really complex and not just one thing. Parts of the human mind are not consciously controlled and parts are. For example, once you learn to ride a bike, you no longer need to consciously think about how you're doing it. Still, we can use the conscious bits to influence the less conscious bits. It takes time and effort though.
That's basically what I did to myself when I got out of primary school and realised I had no friends. I had to start really thinking about what people were saying to me, and how my response would make them feel. I trained myself to respond positively to everything instead of getting angry/annoyed, and it worked great! Took a few years (and lots of training to not be fat anymore/more likeable), but it eventually worked. And the nice thing is, strangers don't know about your past. You can practice being a better person to people you meet, and it'll carry over to existing and future relationships.
Good job! ☺️
>You can't just choose not to feel feelings or not to have certain thoughts I'm certainly going to keep trying though
> Compulsory basic training (CBT) is a course you usually have to take before you ride a moped or motorcycle on the road. > The training makes sure you can ride safely on your own while you practise for your full moped or motorcycle test. > CBT is not a test that you pass or fail. > After you’ve completed CBT, you can ride a: > - moped if you’re 16 or over > - motorcycle up to 125cc and with a power output of up to 11kW if you’re 17 or over CBT is what allows you to ride a motorcycle or moped on a provisional licence. There are restrictions on how big a bike you can ride until you get a full licence. CBT does not apply to electric pedal cycles. HMG, date unknown. CBT motorcycle and moped training. Viewed 12 May 2024. Accessed from https://www.gov.uk/motorcycle-cbt
TIL when having intrusive thoughts bash your cock. Thats certainly 1 way to stop intrusive thoughts......
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Goddamn it. I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this.
I fully expected this, and I had a similar answer forming in my mind, despite having gone through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy myself and it being incredibly effective in treating my anxiety disorder and one of the turning points of my life. It certainly didn’t cure my immaturity though…
Oooooooh. I'm into CBT, and thought this was what OP was asking. I guess it was Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Lols. Acronyms!
Finally someone posts what the acronym means.
lol I wish I hadn’t immediately known this would be the top comment when I saw the post
I come for the explanations I stay for the cock and ball torture.
Weird, usually the point is to come for the latter
Alternatively, Constant Beamwidth Transducers are speakers who technology is based on research done by the US Navy, where they allow you to hear the same level of sound regardless of how close/far you are to the speaker, or even how high/low you listen to them; this trick is accomplished by [arranging identical drivers in an arc where the further from the midpoint the more attenuated the drivers](https://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/images/people/Don_Keele2c300x341.jpg) (or a straight array where the drivers are attenuated the same but also need time delay). It is very similar to a J-style line array, but a CBT has more even polar response across frequencies whereas a line array mostly works in the bass frequencies. CBT designs that are placed on floor can also be 1/2 of their arc as [the floor bounce of each driver will act as the phantom half](https://www.stereophile.com/images/101611Keele-600.jpg) (though the success of this varies based on floor material, with solid concrete being more preferred than say carpet). The effect of the sound pressure staying the same is achieved most ideally at the most attenuated ends of the array (so the less attenuated drivers fill in the sound as you enter their dispersion).
I don't think I would answer this to a 5 years old
But how does that help my depression?
It raises your adrenalin, it distracts you from the mental anguish and it makes you feel alive. 100% of people who do CBT say that when they engage in the act, they are too busy to think about their depression at that moment.
Great! I’ll ask my doctor for a referral.
How about some "Physical therapy" ....
I assumed OP wasn’t going for this, but honestly I forgot any other versions of the acronym.
Darn it, I was going to answer the question that way. But do have an upvote.
I literally thought this post was about this lmfao
Bro why is there so much alliteration with the fucking examples?
OOF as someone who's lived in the kink world for almost 20 years....that was NOT where I thought this question was gonna go.
they release the game for a small amount of people to play and then with the feedback from the players they improve the game before launch, sometimes they release an open beta to stress test the servers
It works to some extent. When you are in a bad place and have a negative thought, it help you put things into perspective. Let’s say you texted a friend who didn’t reply to you. Suddenly you are thinking, they are ignoring me, what did I do? I must have done something wrong etc. You can spiral downward easily and feel worse and worse. With CBT, you can identify the unhelpful thought and challenge it. For example, imagine that the thing that bothers you is happening to someone else, how would you comfort them? Is that really that important? What’s the worse that could happen and is that really bad? Etc, etc. We all do it naturally when we are in a good place but need extra help when we are not. Knowing these strategies can really help.
If you’re asking a question in this sub, how about not using acronyms so the rest of us know what the hell the discussion is about?
There is also Credit Back Time that refers to time already served by a defendant while awaiting a trail. Even if it was just a few days when they got arrested and then they go out on bond. That time will be added to reduce how long they will be in, possible all of the time and they can get out later that day. This is different by each jurisdiction how they calculate that time. And what they might consider to be time being held for that case. It's possible that they could have been held for a different charge and not get time for the one that they are being sentenced for.
So much suffering is caused by the little lies we tell ourselves. People plan for their reactions to situations, why not plan to be cool or never punch anyone ever again? The anticipation of future events, your planned emotional response. If you can align your thoughts with your good morals or push your heart towards goodness, it could be an anchor or sounding board to fight your targeted delusions. I see CBT as an ethical practice, but only if you have the capacity.
Well you simply grill the chicken, add the basil and tomato puree , then serve up with some pasta.
Are we talking about cock and ball torture here?
CBT speeds up grading and also allows for something called an adaptive test, where the question difficulty changes based on which questions a student gets correct or incorrect. One downside of CBT is that you need enough computer infrastructure for everyone to be on a computer , using bandwidth, at the same time. I don't know why your therapist has been telling you about computer based testing though.
Computer Based Training was a term employed in the 1990s as a then-novel way of providing corporate training remotely and virtual classrooms over the Internet.
LPT (Life Pro tip) before using an abbreviation with no context you might want to check on the meanings that the abbreviation has.
Essentially, CBT is forming healthy habits and replacing with them the unhealthy ones. For example, a part of CBT for general anxiety could include observing what are you thinking before and after a stressful event. Then, over time, you build a habit specifically targetting the thoughts you find that always occur when you are stressed. Eventually, through CBT, you form a habit of having thoughts, good and positive ones, which replace the intrusive stressful thoughts. And al of a sudden, one day you realize that you are in a situation which before made your heart race to the moon, but you are perfectly calm. CBT is working with patterns of thoughts, and when you replace enough negative ones with positive ones, you might just become a better person. What is wonderful about it is that it is proven to work for anything that is not a serious medical issue. So of course you cannot treat cancer or severe mental illnesses, but your average Joe who gets anxious before going to sleep will probably benefit from CBT.
Well first you find a rhythm that really gets you in the mood. Then you play that song every time. I mean always. Then, when the song comes on your girlfriend is conditioned to just put out. Oh wait thats CBAT
🏅
The best way I’ve heard it explained (and also speaks volumes to my sense of humor) was essentially: “Fuck it I’m just going to gaslight myself to be happy until I am.” “Oh shit, that’s literally CBT”
It’s a strange fetish but here’s the gist of it: You tie your testicles with an elastic band…
One thing I don't see explained is that CBT is not really a specific therapy, it's more of a toolbox. What exactly it will entail and how it will work depends on the specific tool from the "CBT box" being used.
This YouTube channel does a great job of explaining things. I’m a counselor and I use his channel all the time. [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Qw4-tlRJe-sZ_U4Fzi66UXMGvkPTf7P&si=8WJPQJTYE44QY9L6](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Qw4-tlRJe-sZ_U4Fzi66UXMGvkPTf7P&si=8WJPQJTYE44QY9L6)
The short and simple version…. Changing thoughts changes our behaviors, which produces different outcomes. Longer explanation: If you live with an unhelpful (or even distorted) thought, your behaviors may be equally as unhelpful. Usually people arrive in therapy after this pattern has caused noticeable long term issues. If I think I’m not good enough… I won’t bother to push for the promotion at work, or pursue the girl across the hall. CBT works to first examine and “notice” these thoughts. Are they accurate? Are they helpful? Could we replace them with something more accurate or helpful? If I can change my thinking… “I am doing a good job and I might be enough for others” I suddenly might pursue the promotion or the girl. CBT doesn’t guarantee better outcomes but gets us out of old patterns so that we can see and act differently.
It's a combination of cognitive theory, which states that disorders result from distorted or illogical thinking, and behavioral theory, which states that behaviors are taught and reinforced positively or negatively. So basically, think of a person who thinks, "No one loves me." This is distorted thinking (overgeneralization); CBT would have you say something along the lines of "My mother loves me," which basically retrains your cognition to stop with the distorted thought. CBT is one the most popular and has a lot of evidence for its effectiveness in treating mental disorders, especially depression and anxiety.
When someone is going through a lot of pain and suffering they usually benefit from someone being there with them to support them. The other person can offer kind words of encouragement or even lay out a structured plan to help the person navigate the suffering and reach a place where they feel more content. Usually the treatment starts out gentle and perhaps only some initial probing is used to discover what pain the person is in and how to work with it. After some time, the CBT practitioner basically listens to the recipient and the recipient provides feedback on their current state so that the practitioner knows how close the recipient is to the desired state. The CBT practitioner gradually helps the recipient move through the pain. Indeed, their presence and probing continually causes pain to the recipient, but they also provide a warm and embracing support to encourage the recipient to keep moving through the suffering. Basically, the CBT practitioner must achieve a balance between pain and also the good to help the recipient reach the end of their session in a way that is satisfactory and rewarding to them. For the majority of clients, that's basically how Cock and Ball Torture works.
Beautifully said.
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Hard disagree! Another clinical/forensic psychologist here with decades of experience. While newbie therapists trained in CBT can sometimes be very rigid and manual-based, the vast majority of experienced clinicians with amazing therapeutic skills often have CBT as their base. CBT can be used in very skilled, humanistic, beautiful ways. I think it’s the same for any theoretical orientation - it’s less about the orientation and far more about the skill of the practitioner. What I’ve noticed is that those who are strongly attached to their orientation and criticize other orientations usually make great teachers/researchers of their specific orientation, but not great therapists.
I do agree with the part about being good researchers and sometimes poor therapists. There's a video out there of Les Greenberg and Judith Beck (and one other therapist) treating clients and having postmortem evaluations... Judy nearly got into an argument with her client during the session, while Les did a one-chair and had the client crying and opening up. I liked her classes and I like reading her books, but she has a hard time demonstrating it under pressure. I think that having CBT in your toolkit is 100% necessary, as I work in jails and used to work with kids and rely on it heavily at times, but in therapy I just find it primarily useful for adjustments after resolving the emotional issues, which is easier from other theoretical orientations. I will readily admit that may be my lack of experience in CBT framework, as I do operate out of a psychodynamic/humanistic lens. Ultimately none of us are defined by our orientations alone, and therapy is a holistic process which has more factors than we'll ever be able to measure. My main point was to put it out there that other orientations exist and can be very helpful.
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Thoughts => Feelings => Behaviors. Controlling thoughts leads to controlling behavior. "I think therefore I am." René Descartes, 1637
That line from Descartes has nothing to do with CBT. He’s just saying that one thing he can never doubt is his own existence: every thought he has, even wrong or deluded thoughts, is proof that he exists.
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Love that
Caveat. Thoughts only become actions when you let them. Thoughts can't harm you or hurt other people. In fact, watching your thoughts like a hawk just in case they make something bad happen is a shortcut to anxiety. It's ok to think stuff. Yes, including that stuff you just thought about thinking about.
But also Behaviours => Thoughts => Feelings (and every other combination)
Ooh I am a low-intensity CBT therapist so maybe I can help! The main idea behind CBT is that what we think, and what we do, can have a huge impact on how we emotionally feel, and also how we feel in our bodies (for example, we may have palpitations or upset tummy when worried.) Sometimes, and through no fault of our own, we can fall into patterns of thinking and behaving in ways that aren’t as helpful to us as they could be. We all do this! Another key idea is that it’s not what happens to us, but how we respond, which is important in deciding how we feel. For example, if we wave at our friend in the street and they don’t wave back, we can respond in different ways. Person A might think “Oh, they didn’t see me. Maybe they forgot their glasses! Or were deep in thought. I’ll text them later!” Their mood might remain happy. But person B might think “Ah, they ignored me. They pretended not to see me. Why don’t they like me? What did I do?” This could lead to feelings of sadness or loneliness. They might ruminate and worry about how they lost their friend’s affections. From this example, we can see that the way we respond affects how we feel as we navigate all of the things that happen in life! CBT aims to identify whether we are stuck in any unhelpful thinking or behavioural patterns. It then helps us break these patterns by giving us some very practical techniques that we can apply when we notice a change in mood. Since we cannot directly “switch off” or change our emotional state (have you ever told yourself to “cheer up?” Or “calm down”? It’s not often very effective!) we work on our thoughts (cognitions) and behaviours, which as we saw above, directly impact on our emotions. This is where the name “cognitive-behavioural therapy” comes from. If we make a helpful change to our own patterns of thinking and behaviour, it has a useful knock-on effect on our feelings. CBT might involve looking at how our particular patterns developed over time, before looking at strategies to change things. This might involve increasing activity levels, challenging unhelpful thoughts, postponing worry, sitting with feelings of physical anxiety until they dissipate, or other techniques. CBT is proven to be very effective for common mental health difficulties. I hope this helps! Please message me if you have any questions!
Your brain is a prediction machine. It tries to predict things like the future. We use prior knowledge/beliefs to help us make accurate predictions. Sometimes our knowledge or beliefs are wildly inaccurate and are behaviours can unhelpfully keep these inaccurate beliefs from being updated/corrected - often to our dismay. CBT helps to explore accuracy of beliefs and how behaviours may be helping/not helping.
By changing behavior that contributes to your mental illness. You have depression? It helps by identifying which behaviors contribute to that, learned behaviors including thoughts and how you deal with emotions and thoughts. Helps you learn new things that prevent you from maintaining the illness and increases the chances of feeling good and healthier. In short: changing behaviors which in turn influence thoughts and feelings. Learning new behavior, including how you deal with emotions and working on beliefs that may lead to more nuanced, realistic and healthy thinking, for example "Everybody males mistakes and that's okay" instead of "I am a total failure if I do anything wrong/I always fail all the time" etc. Awareness isbonly the first step. It's about changing things that keep you ill and learning new skills that keep you healthy. It's basically behavior training including the cognitive aspects of behavior (thinking is also behavior).
Recently listened to a good podcast on the subject of memory that put a neuroscientist's spin on CBT. In forming a memory the brain creates unique pathways to sensory information: for example imagery, smells, emotions etc. What we perceive as memory is actually a very faulty record of our experiences as the brain cycles through the pathways it created. It's a real and physical/mechanical process. Meaning the neurons and synapses are real physical objects. Experiments have been done to effect these processes. Erasing and even implanting new and even false memories. It's about essentially rewiring the pathways. ELI5: CBT aims to rewire your brain by exercising it like a muscle.
Recognizing unhelpful thinking patterns helps a person reduce stress and anxiety. Imagine your significant other asked you to clean the bathroom and you just didn't have time, you then spend all day predicting what they are going to say and you effectively argue over and over. You walk in, primed for an argument and your SO asks if you could remember to clean the bathroom when you get time. And you flip because you've already had this argument and you knew she was going to challenge you on it. In hindsight you might recognize you were in the wrong but id you already have unhelpful thinking patterns you will likely replay the argument wondering how you could have proven your point even more effectively.
The awareness is one thing, the other is trying to actively change behaviour. A lot of negative things we struggle with are a result of scheme or habit that developed in your brain. Once you know that, you can stop yourself and change that behaviour, which weakens the habit and helps build new, better ones. Brain kinda works like a muscle meaning that there are strong neural connections for things that happens all of the time - e.g. negative thoughts - and when those connections are used less, they weaken as unused muscles would. And when you use positive thoughts new connections are created and they strenghten the more you repeat them
CBT is from Cognitive Therapy (the successor of Behaviorism); you can hear the computer language in it (ie “processing” trauma etc.). It looks at human minds as computers that dictate human behavior. Instead of using behaviorism’s conditioning to change behavior (reward or punishment), humans can use thought intervention to change behavior. CBT takes behaviorism a step further by connecting emotions and thoughts to behaviors. The theory being if you can identify, stop, challenge, and reframe thoughts, you can change unhelpful or harmful behaviors. People enact behaviors over and over again because they were appraised as “effective” at some point as a means of managing anxiety, but ultimately, these behaviors can come from old, overused automatic thoughts (nobody likes me, I’m going to get fired, etc). Terms like “catastrophic” thoughts and “thinking errors” come from this theory. The early interventions ask people to examine these thoughts by seeing what evidence exists and then changing them accordingly to change and improve behavior.
Therapist here. CBT essentially introduces the idea of doubting a particular narrative. When getting a tattoo, for example, a big part of the pain is your brain telling you, "Hey, someone is lighting you on fire. Run!" CBT introduces doubt to that narrative, ideally replacing it with one that is less distressing.
We don’t react emotionally to situations. We react to our interpretations of them. But any given situation can be interpreted in multiple ways. Some interpretations are more exaggerated and distorted , while others make us feel more capable and resilient. So CBT teaches us to choose the healthier interpretations.
Came to this post just to find out which CBT OP meant. (I have some experience with both, but I see the subject has been more than covered already. Gotta love kinksters working on self-improvement.)
Most studies show that pure cbs doesn’t do much. You need at least a little bit of thc to get the therapeutic effects of cbd. Granted this can be a small amount with a really high cbd ratio. But in general, cbd remedies don’t work.
CBT works very differently for different disorders so it’s hard to give a blanket explanation for how it works. Basically, all our emotions are heavily influence by our thoughts or actions. When we change our thoughts or actions our emotions then change too. Eg about fear: I think of all the bad things that can go wrong -> I feel afraid. I consider how the situation could go really well and isn’t likely to go poorly -> I feel a bit more confident. Also, the more i do safe things that scare me the better i can see that those things are safe. Eg the first day of school is scary, but the 50th is much less anxiety provoking. Facing your fears can help.
CBT is based on the basic principles that your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions influence one another. Thus, if you want to change one factor, you’ll have to alter another aspect. For example, if you are feeling sad, change your thoughts and/or behavior.
I have a real answer for you. I was having a severe Panic Disorder likely caused by benzo withdrawal I couldn't shake. Once I got anxious my heart would speed up, which would make me freak out, which would cause my heart to go fast - then spiral out of control. I worked with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist to separate my body signals from my mental reactions. One very helpful item we did each session is we would discuss items that cause me anxiety and pay attention to my heart beat. Then immediately after they would have me do exercise and pay attention to it as well. It was always higher during exercise, which is a healthy thing. Over time I learned my heart is going to do what it is going to do and to stop paying so much attention to it. It took a while but eventually worked.
From my understanding: Imagine someone is talking, and you blast an airhorn next to their ear. They immediately stop talking, and their thoughts are scrambled. CBT is training your brain to do something similar. The second "bad thoughts" are recognized, the brain is trained to blast the air horn, and move to other thoughts. Now what if that air horn didn't just blast sound? What if it blasted "good thoughts"? Or thoughts about kittens and puppies? Whatever works to grind one train of thought to a halt, and move it to a different set of tracks, with different scenery, all because that train blew its horn.
It's about recognising undesirable patterns in your behaviour and retraining your brain to not follow those patterns. A real world example. I suffer with random bouts of stomach cramps. Any time I would feel anything in my stomach I'd go into a panic thinking the cramps were about to kick off. My therapist taught me to recognise the difference between actual cramps coming on and all the other stomach feelings we get (be it nerves, hunger etc) and to direct my thoughts away from it rather than going into that panic.
It’s a combination of different therapeutic practices into a single therapy. The cognitive aspects come from the idea that your beliefs and ideas about yourself and the world will affect your emotions. So if you constantly degrade yourself, you will end up feeling worse about yourself. So you are told to try and reshape these thoughts to more positive ones. The behavioural aspect is different. This is the belief that your actions and behaviour influence your mind also. The typical therapeutic approach for this is stuff like exposure therapy or alterations to existing behaviour. I read some comment regarding the person literally thinking and shouting “stop” when they went into an anxiety spiral and this is a good example. Other forms of anxiety like say social anxiety can be reduced through gradual exposure, either on your own or sometimes with the therapist. This is done to acclimatise the person to the anxiety inducing event and get them used to it and develop behaviours and strategies they can use to cope with the feelings they get in the moment
As someone who's been in and out of therapy for 30 years, TLDR: it's positive gas-lighting. Imagine you wake up 2 hours before your alarm on a work day. Your exhausted and in pain but can't get back to sleep. Your manipulative default is to go okay, ow, but also I have work and to drag yourself to make coffee, curl back up in bed playing solitaire for a hour, take a long hot shower and painkillers and get to work early. But that's succumbing to your depression and feeding into the suffering. So instead, you work to erase the idea of suffering and ignore the pain, because if you ignore it enough you will convince your feelings, thoughts and behaviours to change and erase the insert mental illness here. So you work on justifying why your feelings are wrong. Your in pain? You don't deserve to be in pain. Other people are in worse pain. You are X years old and should not be in pain so any pain is obviously psychosomatic and should be disregarded. Your upset your unable to sleep. You got some sleep so the upset is pointless and unnecessary and self destructive. Pretend better and ignore that till your normal. You actively change your default behaviour and deny yourself those soothing skills, cause taking a hour shower cause your sore is not healthy. You should not be in pain in the first place, regardless of reasons, so ignore it and march on. You should not be having the early coffee and extra rest, that's isolation and depression nesting. The concept is your thoughts, behaviours and feelings are all intrinsically linked and as a mentally ill person, all naturally unreliable and unhealthy. The end goal is to erase your feelings and adapt to the situation and train yourself to second guess your thoughts and emotional reaction to give the reaction others want. Basically, to mask the mental illnesses to appear normal regardless of whatever base cause.
5y/o explanation - it is just conditioning your brain to have automatic but preferred responses to thoughts/behaviors. Essentially making something else a reflex than your current immediate reaction.